Shock Value Parenting

I don't know it I am the only parent who occasionally uses this technique. (I hope not!) I admit there are times I think a certain child could benefit from a little bit of shock value parenting.



Let me explain.



For several months now Wyatt has had a problem with lying. It is where his imagination and story telling cross over the line, and becomes a flat out lie. I'll pick him up from pre-school and simply ask him what he had for snack. He'll make up some off the wall answer like, marshmallows and jellybeans, when I can clearly see the remnants of cheese crackers on his lips. He'll say it with such a straight face though, that I do sometimes question myself. Maybe he is telling the truth this time, I think. He'll go on to tell me they got a new student in their class named Tim. He's fully describes Tim and I can always suspect he's lying by the amount of detail he'll put into something, so I come back with, "Oh that's nice, I'll have to ask your teacher how this new students is doing." That'll throw him off guard for a second, but then he'll come back with, "ummmmm, she was sick today, so she didn't meet him yet." I just waved goodbye to his teacher about 30 seconds ago. Another lie. I really think I could write a book entitled, The World According to Wyatt.



The lying about really insignificant things was starting to bother me so after a few other things I decided to try shock value parenting. I read him the story from the Bible where two people lied about something and God "struck them down dead" putting great emphasis on this part. We also read the 10 commandments and talked about how when you grow up, and continue lying you could go to jail and get locked up. (I know, I'm so horrible). Did this work? No, not really. He will tell anyone the story of God striking the liars down dead, but it still doesn't stop him from lying. Do I still think shock value parenting might work on him one of these day? Yep, I do. And when the opportunity presents itself I continue to try.



Yesterday Wyatt was balancing precariously on top of a step stool flailing and acting as if he was going to fall. When he did fall (on purpose, for attention) he landed on a VHS we has checked out from the library and cracked the plastic. I decided on the spot to try shock value parenting again and said something like this:



Oh, my gosh Wyatt, you BROKE the video that we checked out from the library. We are going to be in so much trouble, I bet the library won't ever let us come back!



He looked at me and for a second I thought it might work. But no, it really had no affect on him so I had him put the stool away and warned him not to play on it like that again, it just isn't safe and things get broken. The video, although cracked a tiny bit, will still play perfectly, so I let it go. It was at least 10 minutes later I passed the boys room to hear someone sobbing. I looked in and found Will on top of his bed with his head buried in the pillows crying his heart out. It took me a full minute to calm him down enough to get him to tell me what was wrong. "The library won't ever let us come back", he choked out.



Ok, now I really felt bad. I went on to explain to him that, yes the library will let us come back, the worst thing that could happen would be we'd have to pay a fine, and I mostly just said that to teach Wyatt a lesson. I apologized and he was fine.



Am I the only one out there who has tried this method? Maybe I should just stop the whole shock value parenting. I realize it is not highly effective in most situations. But I know it works on one kid. I just keep thinking that someday it might work on the other.

So, in closing I'll leave you with a totally unrelated quote from Wyatt, today:

W- Mom, do you know what girls do when handsome boys are around?
M- No, what?
W- They blink their eyes really fast.