Virtual Principal’s Office

This week definitely was a roller coaster with what seems to be never ending power struggles, arguments, debates, negotiations and meltdowns drowning out almost everything else. I thought I had a huge win two nights ago after downloading the trial of the Moshi app and enjoying the meditative pirate story that seem to have taken both the children peacefully off to dreamland. Much to my surprise a quick visit to re-tuck the youngest a couple hrs later reveals the bright blue light of a tablet emanating from my eldest’s bed. It was an extremely jarring experience and something that will require much processing because I thought I had time before my kids would be sneaking around and pretty much getting away with it. That feeling your parents tell you you’ll never understand until you have your own children started to creep up my back and it seemed like I had unlocked a new level of parenting, which came preloaded with new and exciting fears and worries you are surprised YOU hadn’t even imagined yet. I had left him listening to that app fully believing he was asleep and the risks posed by the unsupervised device in his bedroom had never occurred to me. Aside from all the thinking that came as a result of this incident it also brought to light the very real fact that until now, as his parents we do not represent the highest authority figure in our son’s life. He was very used to the structure and order of his routine day and I am so grateful that he was able to adjust so well and we were only hearing great things from his teacher. He understood the rules and what the consequences were for breaking them and did his best to stay out of trouble. His time outside of school was characterized by fun dinners at his grandparents’ houses, sleepovers with his aunts, weekly trips to the zoo and a pretty liberal allotment of screentime and treats. It’s unlikely I will ever forget the look of confusion on his face that I see daily as we battle back-and-forth both completely shocked by the behaviour of the other as I’m reaming him out for opening the door and letting our cat out or unbuckling his brother from his high chair and running up two flights of stairs and hiding from me. It took me a while to catch on that he doesn’t understand why all of a sudden this part of his life that used to be almost exclusively about fun now comes with so many rules that he seems to be constantly breaking. He can’t possibly see how the structure and order we are trying to foster is there for everyone’s benefit especially, when on the hard days even I wonder what I’m doing . I wish there was a virtual principal’s office because every day I worry that he’s gonna call my bluff and realize that there is nobody behind the curtain and there’s really not much I can do if he really puts his mind to something. Luckily, the bad days are most always followed by good days and the wonderful moments still shine the brightest. For now we are going to experiment with some behaviour charts and stickers but all of my training and experience has left me feeling no more prepared when it comes to my own offspring.