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My son is on a roll. You can read my Tuesday entry about him, below. I wrote about him on my other blog today. I guess it's part and parcel of being eleven and on summer break.
He has also joined a very exclusive club. Not even all of my own children are members, although I think five of the eight are. This is the Grounded-from-my-bike-for-the-rest-of-the-summer Club. He and dd13 rode to baseball the other day. On the way home, ds decided to take a detour, making stops at the corner grocery, and the fountain in the park (just to cool off), arriving home about twenty minutes late. We were waiting.
It has always seemed a harsh punishment to us. (this time it also punishes ME because I have to drive him to baseball now...but I digress.) Parking your bike until the first nice day next spring. Our oldest daughter was the first offender. Nine years old, she had her Territory in which she was allowed to ride. About five blocks east of us, there was a major city street. That was her boundary, not to be crossed.
When Girl Scout Cookie time came around, she took off selling. (this was twenty-one years ago, so they still went door-to-door.) Later that night, we called her in for Interrogation. "You crossed Miami Street, didn't you?" Instant tears. How did we know? Well, honey, the addresses on your cookie-sales sheet are Across Miami Street. Busted!! Possibly in our anger, we grounded her from her bike till the next spring.
Now to our Next Oldest. He took off from the back yard of a friend's across the street, sailing down the hill the house sat on, across-the-street-without-stopping...right in front of Grandma's car. Busted again!! (she was just grateful she hadn't hit him.)
Others followed suit. But, as I asked them the other day, they never did break the bike rules again.
Kids III, IV, and V went riding around the block (on the sidewalks, so they didn't have to go into the street) one day with a friend, James. Number III had just gotten a new 9th-birthday bicycle. He wanted to ride James's scooter, so James was on his bike.
We had a rule that if you had to cross a street, you Got Off Your Bike and Walked It Across. I got a lot of complaints about that rule, until that day. James was a little ways ahead of my kids, and he didn't stop when he got to the corner. He raced into the street where he met an oncoming car. I am so grateful that my kids did not see it happen. But they never questioned our bicycle rule again. Now, two of the three did get the Grounding for going out-of-bounds, but not because they had crossed an intersection incorrectly.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is that my children all turned out to be very responsible drivers. I got good reports from other parents. They didn't like that we wouldn't let them play the radio for a few months after getting their license. Now Indiana has a law that new drivers can't carry passengers other than family for 90 days. I think that is great. And, as far as I know, they never went out-of-bounds of the Family Driving Rules.
Basic training is never fun. Some recruits get more pushups to do, because of their temprerament--they just buck authority more than other, compliant ones. But eventually, if you make it through Basic, you have a soldier trained to instant commands without question. My 11-year old had a good cry the other day over the loss of bike privileges, but he hasn't tried to wheedle me to shorten the sentence. He has told his friends he's on foot or rollerblade for the present.
He is turning out to be Good Soldier material. This Drill Instructor is pretty proud. |
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Posted by lindafay