Look Into My Eyes

There comes a time when punishing your children that you need to know that they know you are serious. Usually, when this time comes, I tell my kids to look at me right in the eyes. This way when the same exact thing happens again, I know, without a doubt, that they deliberately disobeyed me and it's time to lay down the hammer.

The time had come, yesterday, for me to ask Pax to look at me right in the eyes and listen to what I needed to tell him. He did. He stared so intently into my eyes that I thought to myself, "Wow, I am really having an impact on him right now. He is going to be a changed kid from this point on." In fact, at one point, he stared so deeply into my eyes that I thought he was going cross eyed.

I even took advantage of his complete attention to let him know about some other stuff that he was doing that could get him in trouble. I mean, if you have someone's attention you should lay it all out there, right?

Even though he was still very much looking me right in the eye, and I thought he was still hanging on every single word I had to tell him, I had come to a point that there simply wasn't anything left to say. I had to end the conversation and end this time of probably the best parental molding I have ever had with the young boy.

When I asked him, "Pax do you understand what I have said to you? He responded "Yes, Mommy." I said "Good, now go play and try again." Only to hear him say "Mommy, do you know that there are two Paxtons in your eyes?"

It was clear. He heard not a single word I said. He was just looking at a reflection of himself in my eyes for the entire conversation probably wondering how in the world he got in there.

My very serious discipline technique totally backfired as I turned around and laughed out loud.