allimom
A Day In The Life

#2 continued his contrary behavior up until we were driving to the dentist office. His belligerence was finally too much for me to bear, so I changed tactics. I announced that I had no intention of sending him to school with that behavior, and he would be staying home for the day.

As soon as I caught the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, I continued.

Since he was staying home, he could help out around the house. The back yard has not been scooped in a couple days, all the rugs in the house needed to be vacuumed, the whole house needed to be dusted, both bathrooms needed to be cleaned… and while he was there he could go ahead and do a complete job on the shower (we have no ventilation in the master bathroom, so this is a very distasteful job), all of the flower beds in the front of the house needed weeding, and my car needed to be washed and vacuumed on the inside.

#1 piped up stating “Reverse psychology isn’t going to work mom!”

To which I replied, “What makes you think I’m not serious about this?” I then politely asked #2 to continue the bad behavior.

Surprisingly (OK, not so much) within about 3 minutes his behavior did a 180 and he was polite and respectful for the rest of the drive and through the waiting room and appointment.

Heh-heh-heh…