Jack's House

Chas is still living with us (though I will be reporting on that in more detail elsewhere), but last night, his luck ran out.

Let me start by reminding you that the Tidwell boys are all big for their ages.  At 14, Chas is almost as tall as I am, and he has pretty hairy legs, crotch, and underarms.  His stomach and chest are still smooth, and his bottom only has a few hairs so far, but he's definitely a young man, not a boy... At least physically.  Emotionally... not so much.  While he does show occasional signs of maturity, he - like many (most?) other middle school boys, he's mostly still a boy, which is what sneaked up and bit his rear this time.

I try to walk a balance between letting the boys have too much screen time and being understanding that not all games can be stopped at exactly one hour.  Because of that, I try to keep track of it, but as long as the boys are getting their chores and homework done, and there aren't fights over someone not being able to get game time, I try not to make a big deal of a few extra minutes.  Chas has been pushing that.   Sometimes, a boy might start playing before his chores are finished for one reason or another, but Chas had been on more than an hour and had chores undone, so i told him to get off.  He begged for a few more minutes to finish where he was.  I agreed, and went to put Connor and  Curtis to bed.  It was over twenty minutes later when I came back.  That also made it after 8pm. 

Now, you have to remember the weather.  We're supposed to have rain this afternoon.  The high was only 54F/13C.  No rain over the weekend, but colder and very windy.  In the summer, much less video gaming gets done around here, because the kids are almost always outside.  At this time of year, video game time is much more precious. 

I pointed out to Chas that he not only had chore strikes, but that he'd deliberately disobeyed me, and I told him he was going to have a sore bottom.  I let him undress himself and fetch a bath brush.  I gave him his choice of six swats for chores and losing his game privileges for the weekend or getting a full on spanking, which explains why I wrote the paragraph above.

The thing about Chas (and all the Tidwell boys really), is that they're good kids, but they are pretty impulsive  Perry has outgrown that, but with the other boys, I think they genuinely regret when they get in trouble - after they realize it.  However, that doesn't change my duty to enforce consequences.  We used the stool.  It wasn't a harsh spanking, but it was still firm and thorough, and he was crying pretty hard before I let him up.

What was his attitude afterwards? Did he get over it quickly?

Pretty much.

Boys don't put as much thought into spankings as we do, so they don't understand ideas like 'emotional content'.   He doesn't understand that he screws up, then works himself up over guilt, so he doesn't understand why he breaks down from 'just' a whupping.  He (and his big brothers, for that matter, and Lincoln to a lesser extent) tend to be more upset with themselves for their misbehavior than upset with me for correcting them over it.

He (and his big brothers, for that matter, and Lincoln to a lesser extent) tend to be more upset with themselves for their misbehavior than upset with me for correcting them over it.

What about the other boys (non-Tidwell)?  Is this generally true for them all?