Raising and Disciplining the Female Calvin

I first had an inkling that we were raising the female version of Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by the brilliant Bill Watterson, when my daughter, Holly fell asleep giving me the finger when she was just three-weeks-old. 

If you aren't aware, Calvin, is a fictitious six-year-old with a sharp wit and vocabulary way beyond his years, who often engages in a fantasy world with his imaginary friend/stuffed animal tiger Hobbes, likes to disobey his parents, and frequently gets himself into all kinds of mischief. 

Unfortunately, Watterson retired from creating Calvin and Hobbes in late 1995, though his legacy lives on through my daughter's antics.

Holly treats our dog as if he's her actual best friend/brother. She is convinced that she has magical powers but just hasn't learned the spells yet. She throws around words like "realistic," "edible," "symmetrical," and "hygienic," (mostly using them accurately). She frequently treats our parental requests as though every day is opposite day, and just this week bleached our carpet by creating a "magical potion" out of soap, shampoo, and Liquid Plumr. 

The Liquid Plumr-Bleached Carpet Incident (LPBCI)

Raising Holly brings my husband and me a tremendous amount of "Joy" and some occasional "Pain" (Admitted digression: Who knew parenting was what Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock were singing about? Anyone? Bueller?) 
 

This post focuses on the Pain portion of parenting Female Calvin.

Over the past 7 1/2 years of her life, Holly:

• Hid her wet underwear for weeks under her bed because she secretly took off her pull-ups at night when she didn't want to wear them any more - never mind that at 3 1/2 her body wasn't ready for this step yet
• Asked her babysitter if she was married and when the woman replied "no" said "Why didn't anyone want to marry you?"
• Wrote with red crayon and pen all over her bedroom wall and door because "that's what Hollies do sometimes"
• Gave her stuffed animals hair cuts leaving fur clippings all over her bedroom
• Was sent to the main office at camp after copying a fellow camper and flipping the bird at the pool at ritzy Congressional Camp 
• Accidentally swallowed a dime leading us to the hospital to wait for it to pass through to her stomach
• Took $17 meant for the cleaning people from the dining room table and gave it to her kindergarten boyfriend later found by his mother in his backpack
• Had "Holly often defies authority" written on her Kindergarten report card leading me to picture a terrifying future of her as either a sociopath or a slightly less terrifying one as a punk rocker
• Thrown epic tantrums that involved screaming, crying, slamming doors and kicking the floor over such torturous parental requests like "Turn off the TV and/or "Let's go outside to do  X activity that you enjoy." (Transitions are still not her friend.)

In each of these cases, she had an excuse. Which typically involved two of the three most common phrases spoken by children her age based on my unscientific poll involving my own experience and that of other moms with whom I've spoken about this topic:

"It's not my fault" and "I didn't know."*

While our immediate reaction to these two statements is typically "We don't care whose fault it is" and "You SHOULD have known," our punishment strategy has not been consistent. 

From time outs to no TV for a week to some random thing spoken in the heat of the frustrated moment, we've struggled to find a punishment that:

1. Made her understand that her behavior was wrong

2. Encouraged her strongly enough not to repeat the behavior again

The experts (i.e. my psychiatrist neighbor next door) have always emphasized that praising positive behavior is more effective than punishing the negative. This is all well and good until you need to leave for work and school starts in six minutes and your kid is losing it over having to wear socks in 20 degree weather. 

So with the most recent infraction - the Liquid Plumr-Bleached Carpet Incident (LPBCI) - which could have led to burned skin or worse, we decided to try something different. 

After hearing her "I didn't know Liquid Plumr was a chemical" even though the kid reads way above grade level, we knew we had to change our discipline tune. 

We told her since she didn't know about the dangers of household chemicals, she was going to learn all about them. We had her read a book on poison safety and write a report on it. I've reached out to her teacher to see if she'll let her give it to the class. 

Here in all her glory, is Holly presenting her Poison Safety Report to us.

 

I know that my husband and I are in for more fun adventures from future Female Calvin. And that these adventures may involve multiple piercings, boys with multiple piercings, or a public scandal involving a social media platform that hasn't been invented yet. 

However, I'm feeling more confident now that we'll figure out a creative solution to her always creative problems.

* "It's not fair" is the other top phrase uttered by young elementary school students. Truth.