you're not too old for a smack...

I think I may have found a solution to the tricky problem of disciplining my children.

I don't smack them (although I do get a bit shouty on occasion), and I don't intend to start. But what should I do when my eldest son really steps over the mark? The answer, it seems, is to threaten to take him shoe shopping. It is, without doubt, more of a punishment than grounding him/sending him to his room (he actually likes being home alone with his imaginary alien friends), or depriving him of sweets & chocolate (he prefers fruit). Shoe shopping, however, is his equivalent of a sound thrashing and being sent to bed without any pudding. I know, because that's what we did this afternoon. I had to bribe him with being able to keep the change from buying said shoes. His money box is now overflowing and he has something to wear on his feet to school next week. At least I know what to mention next time he is winding up his sisters.

For Twin 1 the direst chastisement is removing her Rapunzel hat/wig thing (a woman cheekily knocked it off her head in the street today - whilst we were shoe shopping - and she cried for about ten minutes...so that was two out of three miserable kids on our little retail spree).

Twin 2 is the tricky one. Despite being tiny, cute and disabled, she is hard as nails. The only real punishment for her would be to stop her wearing pink. Or break the bad news that when she grows up she won't really be able to marry big Steve who works in her daddy's office, because he is, in fact, already married to someone else. Perhaps both? "You've been very naughty, so I have to tell you that Steve has a wife in England and I've tossed all your pink skirts in the bin." No, that would be too much. That would really push her over the edge. I'd have to save a double whammy like that for something really heinous.

So if you see me in Clark's with a grumpy boy, one hatless tearful girl and another distraught girl dressed in blue, then you'll know that it's been a really long half term and I'm about to hit the gin.

Hmmm, I think maybe I should write an alternative parenting guide detailing these useful kernels of maternal wisdom...