Chalk It Up

An excerpt from the bestselling Clintons' Guide to Raising Awesome Children.

Sometimes the best lessons can be demonstrated with a story.

Picture a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  We just watched our favorite football team receive an old fashioned butt whoopin'.  The entire time, my son actively cheered for the opposite team, while displaying alarmingly poor fan etiquette by mocking our players.  This is actually standard Sunday behavior; he has chosen to throw off the reins of tradition and cheer for the team that is playing "our" team.

(Even as I type this, hours later, he just looked over and quoted some stat about how many interception our quarterback threw today.)

Since Sunday is a day full of endless football and futbol, we had to force an unwilling child outside for some vitamin D.  He acted like we were asking him to go shovel out the stables (they are just on the other side of our lake, by the garage with vintage cars).  There was the whining, then the attempted defiance (squelched quickly by his tyrannical mother), and finally the sighing and eye rolling.  This is new behavior.  I find it rather annoying.

He took one step outside, sat on the patio and continued to sigh and audibly demonstrate his displeasure.

As a responsible parent, mature and aware of the need to correct unacceptable behavior, I took the following action (with the help of Marina's sidewalk chalk).

This one was particularly brutal (he lectured me on not capitalizing his name).  

Eli tried some retaliation with a stub of pink chalk, but since he wrote in cursive then dragged his knees through it, the sting was taken out of his "Mom's farts smell disgusting."

I tried to get a picture of him rolling his eyes... but he was too quick for my camera snap.  

As you can see, instant results.  I'm filing this one under "Proven techniques, guaranteed results".  

Note:  I tried this on the cats when they wouldn't stop fighting.  "Fat Linda has no skills" and "Lorenzo licks his butt" had no apparent result.  I am now adding a "Does not apply to animals," in the fine print of this chapter for compliance reasons.  I also have to figure out a way to get this marker off the walls.  

If you would like to book me for a child rearing workshop, please contact my manager, Fat Linda Clinton.