Today’s Daily Prompt from The Daily Post reads:
What was the last lie you told? Why did you tell it?
You can see the prompt and links to other responses here.
I read this one and immediately thought of all the nonsense I tell the kids, from Santa seeing their every move, to babies coming out of belly buttons, to the possibility of the President dropping by (so we better keep the house neat).
My most recent lie?
JC, my nine-year-old son, seems to be approaching the “snarky” age. He’s talking back and being disrespectful to me and bothering his little brother. I think part of the problem is that he’s bored with the summer. School can’t come soon enough for my family. We need the routine and the entertainment provided in the school setting. Oh yeah, and the education. Anyway, I believe that’s partially the cause of his newfound “brattitude.”
Onto my lie: This week, JC stressed me out so much that I threatened him that instead of going to karate camp, I was calling the priest and sending him to “confession camp,” where he would spend the day explaining his behavior to Father T. and praying for forgiveness. Then I picked up my phone and fake dialed the priest.
“WAIT! NO! I don’t WANT to go to CONFESSION CAMP! I’m SORRY,” he wailed, as I held my phone to my ear.
“Okay,” I said. “But next time . . .” I wanted the threat of “confession camp” in his mind for future incidents.
Listen. I know that using a Holy Sacrament as a form of punishment isn’t an “ideal” parenting move and isn’t helping me climb up that Stairway to Heaven. I admit that I am neither Parent nor Catholic of the Year. I simply couldn’t take it– he was driving me nuts! I do feel sort of bad about it (with Parental and Catholic guilt), so go ahead and yell at me in the comments. I deserve it.
In fact, maybe I’ll go confess to Father T. while JC is at karate camp.
Have a nice night!
Waiting on a Word 
I found it humorous how effective of a punishment that was. You might want to tell him later though, just so he doesn’t get super stressed.
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Good plan. In addition, I don’t want him to go back to school talking about Father T.’s “Confession Camp!” (He goes to Catholic school).
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Okay – I’ll repeat – that was brilliant! I loved it! And sometimes we just have to lie to our kids and be extreme and over the top – it’s all that will penetrate their brains!
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True! Lying works- as wrong as that is! Thanks, Tweeter Buddy 🙂
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I must confess. That was pretty awesome.
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haha Thanks, MJ. How’s your summer been?
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I totally do the fake dial with my son as well. I threaten to call totally random people from his pre-k teacher to the sanitation men. For some reason it works 😉
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HAHA! That’s excellent. It totally works too. I use the fake dial to Santa all the time. Unfortunately, JC’s getting old enough that that won’t work for long. Once he had a freak out when I accidentally deleted his favorite show from the DVR so I blamed the cable company and fake dialed cable and yelled about it.
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CONFESSION CAMP!! Brilliant! Next use, “Mopping the floor camp!” and “weeding camp!”
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Oh those would totally work. Or will backfire if they actually WANT to do that stuff. haha.
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Hahaha you’re so bad! Putting the fear of God into him :p
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Brattitude! I love this one! Yeah, dealing with bad talk can drives us crazy. Tweens nowadays are indeed hard to handle and requires creativity in us moms.
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I think “confession camp” is a wonderful parenting tip.
Oh, I mean… shame on your for telling a lie 😉
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