As you all know I am totally against spanking, hitting, slapping etc when it comes to kids.  I have gotten better about other people doing it.  If you spank, fine don’t talk to me about it.  If you do it in front of me I have gotten really good at turning around, counting to ten and calming down rather then decking you in the face to see how you like it.

That being said, you must wonder what I do to my kids.  Spanking parents will say, "you better knock it off or you will get a spanking."  Most likely your kid stops.  But me, I don’t spank and time out is worthless now so what do I do?

I’ve held off telling you this forever because I’m sure someone is going to tell me I am a monster who is going to totally fuck up their kid for life, but seriously if you make it through parent hood and you haven’t fucked up your kid just a little, consider yourself a failure.

Brandon is absolutely 100% terrified of vacuums.  Even dustbusters.  One day Rob was vacuuming and Brandon ran screaming.  About 10 minutes later he grabbed a toy from Codi thus making Codi scream.  I told him to give it back and he shouted NO!  Rob turned around and as a joke pointed the vacuum wand at him and within seconds Brandon had given that toy back.

Hmmmm.  He might be on to something.  So now, when Brandon is being a shit head, you might here me say, "you better knock if off or I’ll get the vacuum."

Is it mean? Yes?  Do I care? NO!  Is my kid probably going to grow up having some kind of vacuum disorder? Sure.  But who cares, his future wife can deal with it when she goes to vacuum the table and her husband goes running in the closet to hide.  

Last week we were at Walmart and Brandon had gone way past shit head and moved on to "your being such a shit head mommy needs a valium and shot of Jager to handle you."  I begged him to be good.  I said there would be no park after, that he couldn’t see papa later, that he couldn’t have desert.  NOTHING WORKED.  He was pushing all of my buttons and making it worse, the little fucker was laughing because he knew I was defenseless.  

Then it hit me!

"Brandon, do you know what they sell here?

"What"

"Vacuums!"

"(silence)"

"Big big vacuums too!"

The remainder of the trip he was the most well behaved angel child I’ve ever seen in my life.  Score one for mom!

I’ve never actually had to go get the vacuum, he’s never pushed me that far.  Once, the other morning after 45 minutes of me telling him to put on his goddamn fucking clothes for school I had totally had enough.  He was jumping on his bed playing around saying "you can’t make me" and laughing with Codi as he threw his socks and shirt out his room and said "na na na na."  I had enough.  I marched downstairs, reached up to the shelf that had the dust buster on it and turned it on.  I didn’t even take it off the holder just turned it on.  34 seconds later my child came down fully dressed, shoes and all, his dirty jammies in the hamper like a good child!

I giggled, grabbed the keys and headed out the door feeling like I had triumphed just this one morning.  

So.  There you have it.  My dirty little secret.  I use electronics to whip my kid into shape!

Aside from spanking how do you get your kids to listen?  Do you have any special bribes that you use to make your kids listen?  Tell me, what works for you and your kids?