In spite of what Erma Bombeck might have said about being mean, I think I will someday win the "Meanest Mom" award. I was very impressed last week when reading Kelly's foster adoption blog that discussed Slot Machine parenting vs. Coke Machine parenting.

In reading her post, I realized that I too have been guilty of slot-machine parenting when my children misbehave or don't comply with a request. Unfortunately for Caleb, my enlightenment had to happen on the same day that he decided to test me by refusing to join the family at the table for dinner.

Caleb has a strong sense of justice, which in his mind basically means that if he did something and is guilty we should look the other way, but if a sibling committed a grievous sin, we best jump right on it and correct the behavior immediately. He currently believes that if he says "excuse me", everyone should jump to get out of his way, because after all, he did say the magic words. It doesn't matter if he has come up to someone who has been standing or sitting in a place for a reason, and who may not be able to immediately move. It also doesn't matter if he could easily step around that person and go on his merry way. Oh no...he said "excuse me", so we better accomodate him.

Last week, Micheline was helping me in the kitchen and I told Caleb he needed to come help set the table for dinner. He came right up behind Micheline who was chopping up some fresh fruit, issued his all important "excuse me!!" (must be always said in the neighborhood of 80 decibels) and when she didn't immediately move out of his way, became very frustrated.

I decided that it was time once again to discuss this issue with him and as I tried to explain that saying "excuse me" does not put you on par with emperors from the Ming dynasty, (no I didn't really use those words) he became very exasperated, knowing he had been wronged once again and retreated to the chair in the living room.

I told him that walking away while I was trying to talk to him was not an acceptable choice, and he chose to ignore me. Not wanting a blow-up at dinner time, I left him alone. Slot machine parenting error number one.

continued...