Saying No to Toots

He asks.

I say no.

He asks again.

Again I say NO.

He yells.

I yell.

He storms off.

I throw my hands in the air or slam a door.

He quietly sneaks to my side and leans on me.

I lean back.

We are both forgiven.

This is a regular occurrence at my house with Toots.  He is determined to say the least.  I often wish secretly to myself NOT to break his spirit, but to simply guide it.  Simply...ya, that's a laugh.  I'm very lucky he's so quick to forgive.

Last night he wanted to get on the internet.  I said no.  I have my reasons. It's my house, my computer and he's my child to start the list.  Mr. Man and I have a rule that there shall be no internet perusing unless one of us is there.  It's a rule, that the older brother breaks often, dang him.  Thankfully he's pretty trustworthy for 13, but he's sure not making it easy for us to have a single standard.  That's an issue we have to deal with and I feel password protecting and some gnashing of teeth coming on.

It's not my kids I don't trust...it's the world-wide-web.

I could have gone with Toots and looked at what he wanted to see.  It wouldn't have been that big of a deal.  It wouldn't have taken that long.  But I was busy with dinner.  And I said no.  Then I said no again.  Then logic left and me winning became paramount.  I stopped being the mom.  Then I yelled.  Then I leaned.

I'm not convinced I handled it all that badly.  Except for the part about losing a momentary grip on logic, and the part where me winning means he must lose. I usually fail miserably at this part of parenting and resort to the "Fine, have it your way." tactic, which helps no one and makes me cringe because I can hear my own mother's voice, bless her heart.

This time though, I decided to throw caution to the wind and handle the ending differently.  I stopped what I was doing and I looked that boy right in the eyes.  Even though I've done this before (like, a million times) I explained to him the why.  I tried to let him see in my eyes just how much he means to me and why the answer was no.  Because 10 is too young to wander the internet alone.  Because the internet is wonderful and yet dangerous all at the same time and a little help from me will help him learn to be responsible.  Because fixing dinner for the family is important too.  Because when I say no, he should honor that.  I told him I loved him and that we'd have a chance to look at stuff another time, but it wasn't going to be right then.

This time it worked.  He hugged me and moved on to helping me with dinner, which was AWESOME.

I don't know why he and I play this scene out over, and over, and over again, but we do.  I can't give up on him.  I can't just let him run will-nilly without regard for rules.  If I don't handle it at 10, imagine what he could be like at 15.  Two things are for sure.  He's going to keep pushing and I'm going to keep pushing back.  I have to.

I found this post this morning and I wonder what list he would make of the negative things I throw his way.  I'm pretty sure I could change up a few phrases and maybe get some better results.

Then maybe there will be less leaning for forgiveness for both of us.