For real my ex-husband threatened my then 4 year old daughter with that punishment. We all know that kids can drive us to distraction and occasionally we have an interaction where the child says “So, I don’t care” for each time you tell them stop-or-else. For one thing, threatening more than you did last time doesn’t work. It’s not like her 4 year old mind is going to say “So, I don’t care if you tell me to sit on the chair for a time-out. I’m holding out for no TV or dessert but early bedtime because THEN I’ll listen to you.” And it’s a no-brainer that when we’re calm we realize that you can’t threaten something that you won’t actually do in a million years. However, this time he kept upping the ante on the punishment until he yelled OR YOU’LL HAVE TO SLEEP IN THE GARAGE! Really?
Being a smart child she responded “No I won’t.”
I intervened.
I had a similar moment recently with one of my high school students. Don’t worry, I didn’t threaten him out loud with sleeping in the garage. I did ask him to stop talking and focus. He didn’t. It went kind of like this…..
Him: talk, talk, talk, laugh
Me: Please stop talking and focus.
Him: talk, talk, talk, laugh
Me: I’d like to talk to you outside.
Him: laugh laugh laugh okay
Me in the Hallway: We’ve discussed this before and it has to stop.
Him: This is how I am. I’m not going to change.
Me: Now I’m going to call your parents. Your behavior is inappropriate and that’s the next step.
Him: So? They know how I am.
Me: Then I’m going to write a behavior referral.
Him: So? I don’t care.
Me silently in my own head: Stop or you’ll have to sleep in the garage.
I wasn’t able to give myself a time-out to regroup, but I did realize at that point that we were both acting like little kids, even though I’m 61 and he’s 18. And I want to stress that I have very good classroom management so this was rather a shocker to me. But the important lesson to learn here?
There’s no sleeping in the garage on my watch.
I’m curious……what year was he in?
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I teach English Language Learners so we go by level, not grade. He’s about to graduate. This was all about me not avoiding the power struggle, not him.
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