There is nothing like Parenthood.
I never thought that I was going to be a great mom, or fantasized about having a house full of little kids, but here I am.
For the past 15 years I’ve been raising a whole horde of children, and I’ve learned a thing or two. Parenting is all about being patient, compassionate, and knowing when to set sneaky boundaries. Sometimes, you can tell your kid something 50 times, but they won’t internalized the lesson until they learn it themselves. That’s why, you have to come up with creative ways to help them absorb important life lessons. Recently, I’ve stopped screaming at my children for messing with the thermostat everyday. For many years, we’ve had an ongoing household battle over the indoor air temperature settings. My kids are always trying to crank up the air-conditioning system or abuse the poor forced air furnace. They don’t understand how expensive heating and cooling is, or the ridiculous stress of a monthly energy bill. All that my kids care about is having the immediate gratification that comes with high powered indoor air temperature control appliances. We’ve been screaming over this issue for so long that I finally decided to just keep my mouth shut. Rather than battling over energy bills and HVAC service appointments that the kids can’t respect, I decided to deter them from the thermostat in another way. I popped a thermostat off the wall and loosely detached one of the wiring connections. Now, if you try to address the thermostat on the wall, you get a small electric shock. My kids are suddenly deterred from the thermostat fiddling, and my energy bills are looking much better.
