How do I handle my son's blatant response in delicate situations?
Hello everyone,
Wow, I have to say I found myself in a very awkward position yesterday. We took a trip up to a combined service with other church members to observe the Feast of Trumpets. It is always a wonderful encouragement to join together and just be with other members in our church. We had been invited to lunch with another family after the morning service and we of course gladly excepted. It was during this lunch that I found myself in a real awkward situation.
My son Aaron is 10 years old and has been testing his ability to defy the rules. I am well aware of this and have made some adjustments at home and been contemplating other adjustments that may need to be made in the near future. I have been more lenient on him than the other kids because he has a more difficult time learning to tolerate his surroundings. As a result it seems that he, being the smart boy that he is, has taken this to his advantage and is testing to see just how much I will slack on.
After we finished our nice meal with this family the other dad stands up and says, "Aaron, why don't you help me go and get some to go boxes." and Aaron actually said no. I was stunned at first and supported the other dad by repeating the same request and Aaron replied with, "No, I'm good." So I more boldly told him this is not an option and that he needs to go help. His blatantly said, "No."
Now here is where it got awkward. I didn't want to offend this church family. I knew they agreed that this was extremely disrespectful behavior, but I didn't know their take on acceptable intervention. To add to my uncertainty we were in a restaurant with other strangers and I found myself truly stumped on how to proceed. I pulled the do it or face the consequences card (knowing this doesn't work with my kids at all) and thought if I were at home or even around people I was more familiar with I wouldn't have hesitated to walk over and physically stand him up and walk him over to get the boxes. However because of our company and location I really felt boxed in.
We don't go out often and the older kids were never as bold as Aaron has come to be so this is really my first experience with this type of confrontation. Looking back on it today I really feel that I made a huge mistake by not making that boy walk over there and help. I have followed through and he has lost his game privileges, but this will happen again. Should I just not worry about who we are dining with and follow my heart? I think about what I want my kids to learn and take with them and I certainly don't want them to think we should pretend around others or that it is okay to disregard certain rules because of others. Thanks for your suggestions and thoughts on this one.
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Mikki-That is a tough one. It's encouraging to me that I'm not the only mom whose kid misbehaves in public (you can see my latest post about tantrums in the grocery store to know what I'm talking about ).
I think you did the right thing by following through with consequences at home. Since this is the first time he's ever done that, that seems like enough of a punishment for this offense. The only other card I could think of to play would be to threaten him with not joining the rest of the family on the next public outing (it sounds like going out to a restaurant is a big treat in your home)...but then that means someone else has to miss out to stay home with him, so it's up to you. If that were the only way I could get through to Aiden, I know I'd do it and have my husband bring me a take-out meal (of course Aiden wouldn't get anything special), but if taking video games away works well then hopefully this is all the reminder he needs and you won't deal with it again. Maybe one other option would be to make him wait in the car (if it's parked where you can see it and the weather isn't extreme) as a sort of time-out and to teach him that if he can't be obedient and cooperative then he's going to be missing out.
~Elsie