The Saga Continues

So I spent most of yesterday, despite my post (which I tried to use to bring me up on the situation... which lasted for about twenty minutes), in a rather strong grumpy funk, much to the dislike of my lovely lady. I'm over it today, though, after I talked it out and slept it off.

Anyway, the saga just had to continue, as I predicted it would last night in one of my foul spells. I fully expected that the child, before the term of her grounding expired, would do two or three things: 1) misinterpret the things we've said, 2) construe a way to get around it, and (hopefully not) 3) outright defy it. Numbers 1 and 2 have already come to pass, and my surprise is that I only expected the first to come about this quickly.

Misinterpretation: The first thing Clueless and Belligerent said to me today after coming home from school was "I need to talk to Mama because she said I'd be able to go to the park today, and I'm supposed to meet my friends there to work on a school project that we're doing in groups." I, of course, was highly suspicious of this, but as I hadn't been present when the law had been laid down, I wasn't totally sure. I told her she'd have to wait and talk to her about it. That came, and my suspicions were confirmed: no permission to go to the park were given -- that, in fact, is the main thing she's grounded about. Observe that somehow Clueless was able to misinterpret things on a fairly grand scale.

Construing: A trip to the park to meet up with friends to work on a group project for school, she says? Incredible is the ingenuity of a stricken child! Nice. It apparently cannot be done over the phone because it involves too many people, and it apparently cannot be done via e-mail because "none of the other kids have e-mail" (Um... yeah, right). This is how Belligerent usually operates: indicating ridiculous reasons why things can't be any other way than the way she wants them. It's a classic control-freak technique that she's got down pat. I know, I know... "no computer and no phone" were part of the grounding, but as this is homework, I think some lenience in the situation are permitted, particularly when the child didn't see the opportunity to seize if it was just a ruse.

So, we had to have a discussion and make a decision: homework that violates the terms of her punishment... on the second day of it, no less. Nice. We decided to allot a time for her to be at the park working on the assignment that was too brief to futz around much with her friends (100 minutes out of the house, giving her walk-there time, walk-home time, and roughly an hour with her groupmates). She argued immediately: I don't have any way to tell time. This is a battle in and of itself.

The child has a watch, actually two of them, that were birthday presents last year. One she lost utterly. The other she "lost" but we found after it had gone through the laundry, having been stuck in one of her pockets and left in the enormous pile of dirty clothes that she only digs out from under her bed occasionally or under threat or command. Amazingly, it still worked! We gave it back to her literally less than a week ago. Guess what. When we told her she'd need her watch and to go get it, she informed us that she'd already lost it again. Can you say "screwed yourself?" I can. My wife did.

So, Belligerent roared and made some underhanded comments about how "now we're not just ruining her life by grounding her but we're making her get a zero on a major assignment too," with no mention of the major assignment she just got a zero in a few weeks ago, we got an e-mail about, and which carried the excuse "I couldn't think of something to do, so I just didn't do it" like that's perfectly acceptable in any world whatsoever. Then she mentioned that the grounding was "crap" and she "shouldn't even be grounded." Our tactic: we cut her off and sent her to her room to rethink her wording and tone. That garnished more arguments which we cut off with the exact same request, fast on the path to becoming a demand. It was almost sad and entertaining at the same time to listen to her mutter about why she couldn't have called because "she didn't even know if those people have phones or not," which reminds me of the time we called her out for not flushing the toilet for the 300th time and her excuse was "I didn't know that toilet could flush" because it was the first time she'd used that bathroom (in my wife's newly completed -- at the time -- office). See? "Clueless and Belligerent" is in no way an unfair moniker for the young lady.

She's miserable in her room now, but this time neither my wife nor I are. Our center was in being firm in sending her out of the situation. I think that might be best.