My son is 11 and he goes out with his friends after school on occasion to hang out. But today he has a piano lesson at 6 pm and we agreed he wouldn’t go out but practice after school. He gets home at 3 pm and promptly comes to my desk while I’m in the middle of a meeting to ask if he can go out with his friends. Now because I’m trying to focus (and he knows he is more than likely to get his own way when I can’t focus completely on what he is saying) I say go but come back at 4 pm. 4 pm comes along and he isn’t home. By 5 pm I jump in the car to search for him around the neighborhood. He is nowhere to be found. I get back home and now I am wavering between furious and terrified that something has happened to him. I sit down and try to calm down. Breathing exercises are my go-to destresser. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. Have you ever, just for a moment though, if he isn’t dead I’m going to kill him. I’ve never hit my child, don’t get me wrong, but I was fuming. I spent the entire time thinking of ways to punish him. No TV and computers. Taking away his allowance. After having my stress level go up 200%, my son saunters up the steps at 5:43 pm without a care in the world.

Needless to say, we got to his lesson just in time. I found a parking space and went up to the studio. After his class – it was the first class with a new teacher – the teacher was so impressed with him and he seemed so happy I almost forgot what he did. I was so proud and I didn’t want to erase his accomplishment. But then as we walked to the car I remembered what I went through 45 minutes ago. So I decided to talk to him about the consequences (not punishment – there’s a difference) while we drove home.

When do you give in and when do you stick to your original plan? I am always deciding between the two because my son is a master negotiator. Can we move the no TV day to Monday instead of Friday? What if I get no allowance in a month, not right now because there’s a keyboard I want to buy (had that discussion just a few minutes ago)? I try to give him some slack so he is making his own decisions or has some control of his life. It’s only fair as he grows older but there need to be boundaries. In this case I think he understood what he had done wrong and did not complain while I itemized what was going to happen going forward. Let’s hope he sticks to it and doesn’t try to negotiate his way out of it tomorrow.