by Heidi Hauptly

Created on: May 14, 2009

I was the typical kid. I did however have divorced parents and my mother tried parenting as best as she knew how. When you think punishment you generally don't think of them as funny or something to laugh at. I was not only somewhat typical as a kid but I was really a really angry and stubborn kid as well. I used to scream at my mother like the best of them. Screaming got me nowhere though. My mom cracked down on my screaming because I would scream so much and then go slam my bedroom door. She told me too many times that if I kept slamming the door it would get taken off the hinges.

One day she got so sick of me slamming it that it was off the hinges and I had no privacy for what seemed like a long time. It didn't seem funny at the time but looking back on it that was rather funny. How can you punish a child when they are looking so cute or trying to make you laugh in the middle of something that is supposed to be that funny? While recalling the good old days of growing up my mom informed me about some rather funny moments I had. My sister and I thought it was funny to put laundry detergent the dry stuff on the basement floor.

My sister and I were covered in the white powder and my mom had to turn away and laugh. She was trying to get her composure together so that it did not provoke us to want to make more messes. I am now grown up and have two children of my own. My daughter has been doing things off and on that are naughty but in return for being naughty she makes faces. I don't know if she knows that I will get mad and so she just makes faces to try and get out of punishment. Like the other day she was all wet from the toilet and the roll of toilet paper was on the floor. She kept making faces at me among the water and toilet paper.

How can you get mad when they are trying to look cute? Sometimes we do get upset though. My son colored all over his bedroom walls with a scrap booking marker. I had a heck of a time getting the marker off my walls. He did one time get into my purse and get my lipstick and the walls again were covered as well as his bed and his face. That I couldn't help but laugh at. We as parents though have to try hard and not provoke our children by laughing. While it can be hard to not laugh we have to try hard to contain it. When we keep laughing or snickering we try and get the kid to realize that it's OK to keep doing what they are doing. But it's so cute in the process.

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