Daddy Boot Camp

Hi! My name is Becky and I’m a control freak. I like to control, umm… everything. Except for deciding where to go for dinner – too much pressure. Everything else is fair game. One thing that I’m not so proud of is my need to control Andrew’s discipline. I have a hard time standing back and letting Keith do his thing which in turn has caused Andrew to rebel against him and, quite honestly, be disrespectful.

All of this is very hard for me to admit because along with being a control freak, I don’t like to be wrong about anything and I don’t like to admit that my child can be disrespectful at times. My child? Disrespectful? NEVER! The many times Keith has asked me to just step back, I thought I knew better and just stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong and took over. That, of course, doesn’t help anything, now does it?

So, Saturday night, we had a very tired boy and a mom who’s back was on the verge of going out. I was laying on the couch while they were about to eat dinner and all you know what broke lose because Andrew thought I was eating in the living room and he had to sit at the table. The meltdown was much bigger than it normally would be because of the tired effect but man did he flip. Lots of yelling and lots and lots of disrespect. I realized, right then and there, that I had to step back and let Keith handle it. Man, was that hard.

And so Keith handled it and everyone wound up back at the dinner table in one piece where they should be and we made it through dinner without any further meltdowns. I, of course, couldn’t let it go (because I’m good like that) and gave Andrew a nice long lecture about how much he hurt daddy’s feelings, how daddy was very sad now, etc… Andrew actually apologized twice unprompted which was nice to see, but we still have an issue to deal with.

What’s the best way to deal with a control freak wife and a disrespectful child? While mommy’s away on a business trip for 4 days, Daddy Boot Camp begins. We talked about how we want to handle certain situations so we do things close to the same so Andrew gets used to hearing it from both of us. Besides that, it’s up to him. (Of course, watch… Andrew will be a perfect angel while I’m gone).

Keith is such a good dad and he’s such a peace keeper. Most of the times he’s trying to keep the peace with me because a control freak who doesn’t like to admit she’s wrong is NOT easy. I’m a yeller (which isn’t a great thing) and Keith is a calm, “let’s talk it out” type personality. Type A meet Type B. On October 5th, we’ll be celebrating 9 years of marriage so SOMETHING must be right between our two personalities, right? :-)

So now, I’ll go pretend I didn’t share my flaws with you. Because I’m a control freak who expects perfection and someone like that would never admit to being wrong.

Becky