Sulky, mopey, and mumbling something under his breath, my 8-year old refused to hand over his Nintendo 3ds to me and go to bed. It was 45 minutes past his bedtime. This had been a common, yet new battle in our household for the past 2 weeks. Up until then, my son was a pretty agreeable, chatty, happy, typical 3rd grader who rarely argued. But two weeks ago his dog, Barney died unexpectedly. They practically grew up together - slept in the same bed together every single night. Without Barney, it seemed our son suddenly ran out of anything to say. He became quiet and withdrawn and buried his head in that darn Nintendo 3ds from the time he got home from school until he passed out with exhaustion at night. We tried everything to try to cheer him up, but nothing worked. There was nothing we could do to protect him from fully experiencing the natural grieving process.
I asked him once again to hand over his Nintendo. At this point, he turned it off and stuck it in his pocket, but still refused to hand it to me. I told him he needed to go to bed and he just stared at me blankly, defiantly. It was at this point in our interaction that I truly felt, that as a parent, I had run out of options.
So I sprung over and grabbed him by his tender neck, placed him in a headlock, and slammed his frail, 65-pound body into our tile kitchen floor, his head hitting the tile making a crack so loud it echoed throughout our house. And I dragged him kicking and screaming into his bedroom. Something had to give. Kids these days need to show more respect for authority.
Note: Every single part of this story is fictional, except the fact that I do have an 8-year old. #satire #blacklivesmatter
