The Devious Child

by Hero Jenkins

When our kids were young our battles were over simple stuff - like the merits of eating vegetables and the importance of nap time. As they grew older the battles became more complex, covering serious issues like: why they can’t hang out at Billy’s house. I've already told you about Billy. He’s the kid that gets into so much trouble he gets blamed for everything… even stuff he didn’t do.

I am from the "old school"... a product of an era when parents believed in spanking... but in this new enlightened age, spanking is not an option. 

So when it comes to discipline, what are the options?

I have some experience in public speaking which means I can talk for a long, long, looooong time. Instead of being spanked, my kids would have to sit through marathon lectures. They were young and sitting still drove them nuts. You see, a spanking only had to be endured for a few moments and then it was over. As it turns out, if they'd actually been given a choice, they would have opted for a spanking. I know this because they told me... more than once! They'd put their little heads in their little hands and groan: “Oh my God dad, why don’t you just beat us like the other parents and get it over with?” I knew I was on the right track.

Alas, this tactic gradually lost its effectiveness as they got older.

My boys were extremely devious. Upon entering middle school they became a real challenge and I was forced to get creative. Here’s an example: We would divide up the household chores and everyone had a job to do. My sons were responsible for cutting the lawn once a week, but I noticed the lawnmower seemed to conveniently break down whenever it was time for them to cut the grass. They swore they didn’t do it but the repairman eventually determined that someone had been pouring water into the gas tank! I couldn't afford to buy a new lawnmower every week so I had to come up with something.

My solution?

I informed my children that I was hiring a gardener. They didn’t attempt to hide their glee… they jumped for joy! Thereafter, once a month, the gardener came like clockwork and everyone was happy - until they learned where the money to pay the gardener was coming from.

I had a habit of setting money aside each month to buy Christmas presents, birthday gifts, and random treats like pizza or outings to McDonald's. Therefore, paying the gardener meant they would have less of one of these things and they got to decide which. Their joy turned to despair as they agonized over the impossible choices.

Nevertheless, they learned a lesson... and I learned a new tactic.

My biggest battle, however, was looming just over the horizon and it would test my new methods to the limit. It would come at the hands of my greatest challenge, my middle child. My wife has always said that if our middle child had been our first child we would have only had ONE child. However, God obviously wanted us to have more than one so in his infinite wisdom he saved the strong willed child for later.

Our first-born had been a breeze and we marveled at our own magnificence. We smugly looked down our noses at other parents as they struggled to deal with their problem children. We were not having any problems, so obviously we were awesome parents and they were not. We couldn’t wait to have another. Little did we know, everything would change. Suddenly we were the ones having problems. Everything became a battle. What was once simple turned into a struggle.

I will now share with you something that took me years to understand. Our children came from us... so the solution as to how to deal with them lay with us. What I'm saying is that our children’s behavior to some extent was genetic. We had to remember what a younger version of either of us was like at that age. I had to think back to when I was a kid... what would have worked? If after deep and honest reflection you come up with nothing, then you should look elsewhere in the family tree. It is entirely possible that your child is behaving like one of your siblings or your spouse’s sibling. Still, there's no denying it, most of their behavior has come from somewhere within your family trees.

As it turned out, my son was somewhat of a hybrid of one of my brothers and one of my wife’s brothers - and just like that we knew exactly what to do!

That's all for now. In future blogs I'll tell you how we dealt with such issues as homemade flame throwers in the garage and other stories that will curl your hair... so stay tuned. 

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So How Was Vegas?

by Hero Jenkins

My wife and I find ourselves in a unique position. We are caring for both grandbabies and grandparents and the similarities are striking. They both are in diapers; they both are extremely demanding because they want things NOW and cannot get them for themselves. They know when they hurt and they know when they are hungry and they are not afraid to let you know. They go to sleep when they are sleepy… anytime, anywhere. They live for the present and they don’t remember a thing.

My mother’s blood pressure shot up one weekend to where we thought we would loose her. We called the paramedics and they called an ambulance and they rushed her to the hospital. We spent all day and all night in the emergency room while they tried to stabilize her blood pressure. Then they over corrected and it got too low.

It turned out there was a problem with her medication and eventually they got it figured out. It was an awful, awful time and we were afraid that this time she would not leave that hospital alive. My mother cried most of the time. She hated hospitals.

They kept her in the hospital for three days and we all took shifts sitting with her. When she was discharged we loaded her up and took her home.

To our surprise my mom sat in the back seat grinning from ear to ear.

“This was the best Vegas trip ever,” she said. “I won $1,400 dollars.”

I made eye contact with my sister, that trip had been months ago.

Thank god for short-term memory loss.

My brother was in the front yard, looking tired and grim. My mother popped out of the car and glided up the walkway.

“I won $1,400,” my mother informed him with a grin.

My brother was shocked and more than a little confused.

“We just got back from Vegas,” I said.

“Ohhhh,” he said, nodding with understanding. Then he turned to my mother and asked.

“So how was Vegas?”

The Principal and the School Bully

by Hero Jenkins

How would you deal with a school Bully when the school Principal refused to help?

It's "Back to School time"! I know this because of the abundance of "Back to School Ads". I got to thinking of some of the trials of school with all of the bullying that is going on.

For better or worse, some aspects of high school are 'Darwinism on display'. The little kids stay out of the way of the bigger ones, the smart kids avoid the dumb ones. And the nerds keep a wary eye on the jocks. Survival of the fittest.

School violence was big in the media at the time my son went to school and the district that governed my son’s high school instituted a zero tolerance for violence one year. In some ways the new 'zero tolerance' policy upset this delicate Darwinian balance. A couple of the smaller kids actually began taking advantage and started bullying the bigger kids. Most of these bigger kids, like my son, were focused on grades and college prep and were former little guys themselves who had just hit a growth spurt.

So I was shocked when I learned that my son was being bullied and even more shocked when I learned who the perpetrator was.

In humans, dwarfism is sometimes defined as an adult height of equal to or less than 4 feet 10 inches. This kid had barely surpassed that threshold and my son was at least a foot taller. He was more than willing to clean this other kid's clock but he'd been taught not to. So I was on the spot. I did what most of you would do; I told my kid to go have a talk with the school principal, explain the problem and let the zero tolerance policy do its job.

The principal explained to my son that the non-violence policy had been put in place to protect the smaller kids from the bigger ones. He doubted that my son was being bullied because he was tall. He hinted that he should be able to take care of himself and more than just hinted that my son was being a sissy for allowing a little guy to push him around. Now I was really on the spot, because everything I had taught him about the system seemed to be garbage and I had to think of something quick.

I had my son write a letter and then we photocopied it. We put one copy in an envelope and tucked it away. We took the original and put it in an envelope, sealed it, put a stamp on it, and then addressed it to the superintendent of the school district. My son couldn’t wait to mail it. He couldn’t wait to see that principal squirm when the superintendent lowered the boom on him. I had to sit my son down and ask him what his goal was. Was his goal to solve the problem or was it to punish the principal. His mouth said "solve the problem" but his eyes said something else… "punish him!"

I told him that we were not going to mail the letter, not right away. There was a third letter that my son did not know about and that letter was addressed to the media. The letter to the superintendent was our back-up plan, the letter to the media was our nuclear option.

Some of you will read this and see blackmail and I have to acknowledge an element of that. But as angry as I was, I tried to put myself in the principal’s shoes. I had to make some assumptions. I had to assume that he was not a bad guy, that he was probably overworked and saw this problem as a 'little' problem. I considered what I would want to happen if the roles were reversed. If I was this overworked principal I would want another chance to fix things.

In these days of emails it is too easy to fire off an angry message and be done with it. With Facebook I could have mounted a campaign to get the principal fired. I see that a lot these days. Sometimes it’s justified - a lot of times it is not. Often the loudest shrillest voices are those who have the worst kids and they are either blind or in denial.

Some parents are just angry while others simply want everything done their way. A teacher once told me of a parent whose kid was diabetic and wanted all snacks with sugar banned because her child kept eating snacks from other kids' lunch-boxes.

Some parents are into power and when an administrator does not bend to their will they enlist the help of others and use whatever influence they have to exact their revenge.

Yes, some administrators are incompetent and should be fired. But others are simply overworked and all you really need to do is get their attention. The key is to know who you are dealing with and not apply the same bludgeon to everyone. The key is to try and do the right thing... and revenge, though immensely satisfying, is rarely the right thing.

So before starting that carpet-bombing campaign, you probably should stop and think about what your goals are.  Do you want the problem fixed or do you want the administrator punished.

As we sat in that principal’s office and watched him read the letter, I knew right away he fell into the latter category. He was overworked and we just needed to get his attention. In this case the problem was resolved to my son’s satisfaction by the end of the day. More importantly, in that principal, my son had a reluctant ally for the remainder of his time in school.

What would you do?

by Hero Jenkins

I know a man who manages a super market. One day a woman came into the store to return a cut of meat that was sold well after its expiration. It was just this side of rancid and she was incensed. The manager took the meat back and gave the woman a full refund. And after she calmed down he pointed out that she had bought the meat from his competitor, the meat did not come from his store.

I asked him why did he do that. He said his company spent millions of dollars in advertising just to bring people into his store. All of that advertisement money would have been wasted if he had sent that woman away empty handed.

“So which store do you suppose she will buy her meat from now on?” He asked rhetorically.

I thought about that when I saw a “Sonic” restaurant commercial on TV today. I wondered how much they were wasting on advertising to get people into their restaurant. You see, I went to the local “Sonic” drive through and ordered a foot long Chicago Dog the other day. I love Chicago Dogs so I was really looking forward to it. When I got home however I discovered that they had stuffed two regular hotdogs and two regular buns into the package designed for the foot long.

Apparently they ran out of foot long dogs and buns so they were counting on me not checking the package until I got home… they were right.

Now here’s the problem, I was kinda pissed and I’m not sure I should have been. For all I knew, if I were to add it all together, the total weight of meat and bun of two small hot dogs was equal if not more that that the total weight of the foot long. So I should quit whining, right? It’s entirely possible I came out ahead.

When I thought about it, I guess what bugged me, wasn’t the fact that they made the substitution, was that they made the substitution without telling me. I think it made me wonder what else they were willing to substitute with the knowledge that most people wouldn’t notice. What if the manager could save a few bucks by using lower quality hotdogs imported from Romania where the standards are a bit more relaxed? Or perhaps he had another connection that ground and made his own hot dogs with meat from a dubious source.

I know that’s a huge leap… but is it?  I mean most chain restaurants have standards, that’s why we go to them because we know what we are getting.

I called the corporate office. I was told that the restaurant was a franchise and there was nothing they could do. They did offer to send me a certificate to go back and try it again. I didn’t eat the hot dogs that day and I doubt I will ever go back. So from my perspective all of that advertising money is wasted on me.

What would you have done?