Kids...and Parents

It is very hard being a parent. I say that knowing that neither one of my kids is even a teenager yet. Some people say I have no idea what hard is until they are teenagers. I say difficult is relative. Its difficult now. I know it will be difficult later, a different kind of difficult. When kids go through that "terrible two" stage its hard. They push boundaries, they struggle with selfishness, social skills, seperation anxiety. They are talking, learing to potty train, its all hard on both kids and parents. School starts and its hard again. Kids are going away, which is very difficult for first time parents. Homework. More social learning. Bullies at school. Friends at home and at school. Teachers, mean and nice. More homework. Both of my kids are in school and have left the terrible twos behind years ago. But I still find parenting hard to do. My oldest is at the age where is he becoming coversational. By that I mean I can talk to him about every day things and he can comment on an almost adult level. The conversations are still centering around "kid" topics, school, sports, what he wants for his birthday, what he is going to do this weekend, but its still nice to be able to just talk to him. My youngest is not quite there yet but not too far away from that level.

My oldest just got in trouble. I won't go into details but suffice to say he is grounded for a couple of weeks. That part of parenting is not that hard. They do something wrong, they get punished. Action.....Reaction. Consequences. Everyone in life has to learn them. Has to learn that consequences exist. Has to learn what certain actions will do and what consequences will come with those actions. That is the easy part of parenting. Here is a hard situation. I have a couple of things that we all do as a family that are kind of traditions. We goto breakfast with Grandma. That is something we try to do as often as possible. Not this weekend. Sure, that is kind of hard. Its not just for us, its for her too. This weekend is Grandma's birthday. We are taking her out to dinner. It was going to be ALL of us taking her out but now I have one that is grounded. It sounds like an easy decision. He stays home. Then you think about it. Well, its not really for HIM, its for someone else. But it still breaks the discipline rule. You have to stick by what you say or its meaningless the next time. He does not get to enjoy dinner or gifts or whatever the celebration might be. But then you are taking away from Grandma. Is that really fair? Maybe not but then parenting isn't fair. Neither is life.