My husband and I quickly learned, that there are ways around this where the parents are also punished. On exhausted weeknights, when my kiddo loses her TV takeover and tablet privileges, the rule is, "You can't watch one of your shows. You have to watch what I want to watch." This is why I spent time in my room when I was little, because my dad would watch Law and Order and stuff I hated.
She usually tolerates my binge-shows, Friends, The Office, Seinfeld and Parks and Rec just fine. Anything else is debate-able. I found out recently that some of my daughter's little friends have been watching my current obsession, Stranger Things, with their kiddos. My daughter is a bit of a scaredy-cat if you will, so I decided that I would offer her the chance to watch it and promised her it was all very much not real and also a story from 30+ years ago, so it's all okay. She has since declined.
Now we have been forcing movies on her since she came out into the world and the bulk are completely appropriate. Some of them may have been a bit over her head but still language and story appropriate. Some things we realized were a little dark and sad so we curbed those but last night I realized that it was time to get her out of her element a bit.
The movies my husband and I grew up on, we have re-watched and realized are filled with swear words and sometimes too much sexuality before they changed the ratings. My dad notoriously let me watch movies I should have never been able to watch at the age I was allowed to watch them. So when I watched movies with my parents where people were clearly having sex they explained it away as "Oh they are just exercising."
Many, many sexual innuendos went over my naive little head in my youth and I now re-watch these movies like, wait, what? The greatest thing about 80's films, in my opinion were the epic actors and comedians. Ghostbusters, The Goonies, Back to The Future, Blues Brothers, Roxanne, Big, Turner and Hootch, Princess Bride, The Neverending Story, Labyrinth, and so on and so forth were those comedies that kids could watch but had humor for the parents, however inappropriate. It was last night that I turned to our crazy collection of DVDs for my daughter's technology band punishment.
My husband and I have over 200 DVDs I think. Even when streaming came out we didn't stop collecting them because the internet doesn't always work and we are from the "have a hard copy" generation. We used to browse Wal-Mart at odd hours and hit the $5 DVD bins and go wild. We especially love adding holiday classics now and Disney films to the collection.
My daughter threw an epic tantrum and the issue we've been struggling with is "I'm sorry doesn't just take away the bad behavior." I've had to make clear to her that, while it is important to say I'm sorry and while that's so wonderful to apologize, it doesn't mean you just get your privileges back. It's a weird line and she crosses it often. So there was screaming and when she calmed down and ate her dinner I said, "I have a bunch of chores to do out here and we can watch something, but I'm going to pick."
I was browsing around and thinking of something she wouldn't totally hate. Pirates of the Caribbean? Eh, maybe. The Mask? Eh, too weird. And then I stumbled upon the Tom Hanks section of our DVDs and there it was...SPLASH. Yes the movie about the mermaid in Manhattan, total score.
It started slow and she got a little bored. There were many benign swear words and all kinds of weird sexual undertones of course I had forgotten about. By the time the mermaid found television and got to go ice skating, she was fully engaged with the story. It was the best punishment ever.
I now think she is ready for the likes of Ghostbusters and especially, E.T. It was one of those weird punishments that actually brought us together. I watched Moana 8,000 times. When was the last time I stopped what I was doing and watched Splash? It made me think of all the other gems we have hidden on a shelf and we really need to make her watch. Indiana Jones, Star Wars, even Lord of The Rings at some point. But for now we will keep her in 80's classics as her punishment, and what a punishment it is.
Parenting gets weird. I try not to fit into too many "I'm that mom" categories but it's hard. I work full time, she is in camp or school or aftercare full time. Her dad works full time. Even Grandma works full time. There is laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, and food prep to do but sometimes you just gotta browse the DVDs and sit down and chill as a family. Even when my husband got home last night he was like, "Is this Splash!? We should watch Big next!"
Funny punishments make the whole parenting thing a little more palatable. Sometimes I'm too tired to be the scolding disciplinarian. Sometimes she's not being so bad, but just really needs to remember how to handle her little emotions and behave at home. Sometimes I've had a horrible day and I'm inadvertently short-fused. It's these moments where you need a tweak in the routine without throwing off the balance but selling her on a movie "mom picked," is almost as successful and selling her on fruit being a dessert.
When parenting gets funny, it gets lighter. When things get lighter, they often feel better. I've started telling my daughter that if she just calls today a day, and goes to bed and reboots, we can all do better tomorrow. She seems to be warming to that idea and I'm digging the nights when the worst thing I have to do to "punish" her, is pick a new movie for us to watch.
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