I Tough Love this kid!

Well I finally got what the term "Tough Love" means last night!  It was horrible, and I know I am going to have to face it again but I felt like I was mommy monster .. I hate that feeling!

Remember this pic???

How about this one?

Well this costume describes my dear daughter Angelina to a T!  Half angel .. HALF DEVIL!

Now if you know my daughter you will know that she is hard headed, stubborn, a natural born leader, confident, good at everything she tries and well liked by all her peers.  What you don't know is that she reserves all her bad behaviour for home!  Let me tell you, she is really pushing buttons and testing boundaries!  Well John and I reached our breaking point with her last night and the battle began!

In all fairness it's probably better if I admit that John and I do not always follow through with our discipline methods.  We'll ground her and then let her off for good behaviour .. well she got wide to us .. so in her mind she thinks "I can be bad, be grounded for like 5 min.. and then carry on like nothing happened!"  NOT LAST NIGHT!

So Ang comes home .. knows she has to write out her words and starts with the attitude.  She talks back, jokes around and has blatant disrespect for us.  Well she got grounded to her room.  She starts with the tears and the door slamming and once she calms down, comes downstairs with apologies (which are only to get off her grounding .. because the minute she is let off .. her behaviour begins again).  She is given permission to come down to complete her homework and have dinner then back upstairs.  Well here comes the tears ... the door slamming, the disrespect .. the apologies, the bargaining .. AND WE DIDN'T GIVE IN!  She spent every minute of her free time last night in her room .. pissed off and utterly surprised she couldn't weasel her way out of it!

John and I were beside ourselves .. I tell you it was harder on us than it was on her, and for the first time I really understand where my parents were coming from when they had to go through this!

I tell you .. in Angelina's future, her strong personality will help her get through many things.  I think John and I need to figure out how to teach her there is time and a place to use it .. and being defiant for no good reason certainly isn't one of them!  LOL

I suspect there will be many more posts like this in the not so distant future .. but at least John and I have now have a follow through plan and our little angel/devil .. and she knows that her parents mean business!  LOL

MMMMWWWWAAAAA!!!!