I’m fortunate that I have 2 very bright boys with unique personalities. I try to navigate the difficult world of discipline, without the purpose of breaking who they are. My youngest, who is always described to me by others as “lively”, “willful”, or “quite the handful”, is probably the most difficult of the two to navigate. He, unlike my oldest, has yet to respond to my simply glaring at him. I just give the look to my oldest, he cowers in fear, and apologizes. Sometimes, I do it just to mess with him and to remind him of my power. I’m an awful human being and sometimes that just translates to my parenting. It’s all about psychological warfare, giving me the upper hand as the alpha of the house.

My youngest is his own brand of beast. He’s defiant, often just for the sake of being defiant. He’s impulsive. He lives life by the motto of “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”. My struggle now is pointing out that “Sorry” is meant for an accident, where you didn’t intend for something to happen. Apologizing for intent is meaningless because that means you knew what you were doing and simply didn’t care. He’s a sweet boy, who mostly means well especially when his meaning well gets him to what he wants. But he’s a kid. That’s what kids do. Due to the age difference between the boys, each of them had their own time as the “only” child. The difference is that my youngest is the baby of the family and that’s the way that it goes. He’s mine. He’s my special child that once he gets through this phase, is going to make his own positive mark on the world. We just need to make it through the now.

Over the course of remote learning, I struggled with desperately wanting to send them back and desperately not wanting to end up in the hospital or worse because of the virus. I did know that when the schools opened up that this would be the best place for him because he needed that environment to thrive. Some kids don’t. My oldest didn’t, but I sent him anyways because he’s a senior and he needed to suck it up and enjoy his last year in the school. Plus, I wanted them to not spend the entire day eating $200 worth of groceries in one sitting. Boys, am I right?

The summer school in our district is free. They bus the kids. I joked about sending my youngest to summer school, because with the way the year ended up, he spent most of the year at home. This summer school would be the break that I needed! It was a funny joke, but then after thinking about it, it doesn’t actually sound like a bad idea. My youngest works best when he’s in a strictly structured environment. His routine every day is down to the minute on the clock. That’s how he’s always been. He’s a bit more flexible about it than he was, but the basic need for routine and knowing what to expect for the day is still important to how he functions and deals with the day. It’s a thing.

I won’t send him to summer school, but you best believe that I’m going to fantasize about it while I’m arguing with him about why he doesn’t need to eat an entire bag of family-sized salt and vinegar chips in one day and why buffalo wings are not something that should be eaten 3 times a day, 7 days a week. Or while I explain mommy needs to work and doesn’t want to know about his YouTube video at this exact second of the day and maybe it can wait until after work. I’ve earned the right to fantasize about summer school for my kid and so have all of the other parents that had a difficult year.