Crime and Punishment
I don’t claim to have the key to bringing up children. But those who are having problems with the behaviour of their kids can do worse than get themselves a “jart”.
Is your daughter refusing to get dressed in the morning without a tantrum? Stick it on the jart.
Is your son going into the shower and standing 1 mm from the arc of the droplets from the showerhead for ten mins then claiming he is thoroughly washed and ready to face the world? Put it on the jart.
The jart works thus. Take one piece of paper and draw a series of vertical lines. Call these lines Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and, yes, even Sunday. Every time your child conducts a misdemeanour put a sad face on the jart. For periods of nonsense free activity or gasp, actual acts of kindness, consideration or normal behaviour, stick up a smiley face. To enhance the learning aspect of the enterprise, stick a little wordage underneath each symbol, so that you can all remember what they were for. Junior Misssy’s jart reads thus for yesterday:
Went to school without nonsense
Walked past park without tantrum
Put wrapper in bin not behind couch
Wouldn’t do what she’s told
Made fun of Mum talking and was cheeky
Said she couldn’t care about the jart
Now the jart isn’t going to work if there are no consequences behind it. How many sad faces (or frownies) are you going to allow before a punishment kicks in, and what should these punishments be?
Perhaps you’d like to take inspiration from my system which works over the period a week?
10 frownies: No story at bedtime for three nights
15 frownies: exclusion from most looked forward to social event. In this case it’s “The Rainbow’s Disco” (think Studio 54 but in a village hall, and with the minister instead of Andy Warhol)
20 frownies: The cooler (see below)
25 frownies: The cooler with no baseball and glove
30 frownies: Being forced to watch a brain washing film whilst strapped to a chair to break spirit (illustration below)
50 frownies: Siberian labour camp in the 1950s
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: Would get passed over
by publishers today in favour of the
Prison Diaries of Paris Hilton.
The problem comes when the kid turns the table on you. I got this* through the post yesterday.
I’m doing OK, but am terrified of what punishments Junior Misssy has in store if I screw up.
*NB: I want to point out two things:
1. Look at my daughter’s instinctive, correct and fastidious use of an apostrophe- these things are clearly genetic.
2.”Jart” is of course chart but spelled by Junior the way she says it.
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Notice of Copyright Infringement
Minnie the Minx
Dear Ms Junior Misssy,
It has come to our attention that you are in serious breach of copyright.
Reports coming into our office have indicated that several of the “jolly japes” and characteristics belonging to the well-loved characters of our top-selling Beano comic have been, well, pinched.
We feel that we need to draw this infringement of our creative copyright to your attention and, frankly, ask you to stop this potentially criminal behaviour immediately.
We have outlined your most recent infringement for your deliberation, and we hope, your embarrassment.
Infringement 1
Plaintiff: Junior Misssy
Location: The Master Bedroom of the House of the Flying Martinis
Evidence suggests that you did, in fact, enter the bedroom of your parents at 7.50am on Monday morning of 24th January 2009, and, having previously applied a myriad of spherical red marks to your face using a felt-tipped drawing pen, you then proceeded to claim that there was “something wrong with” your face. Something that may render you unable to go to school. Something that may be potentially contagious.
Miss, I think you will find that this jape is the copyright of our foremost female character, Minnie the Minx. Our records prove that Ms Minx did in fact use this ruse in the following issues of The Beano:
- 12.09.1972 (supposed measles)
- 16.09.1986 (supposed radiation sickness)
- 23.10.1999 (supposed necrotising fasciitis), and
- 01.07.2005 (supposed allergic reaction to a botox injection)
You will also find, if you were to examine these issues for yourself, that Ms Minx did not manage to convince her father that the marks were indeed lesions of a biological nature as, we believe was also the case in your personal attempt. Furthermore, if you were to look back in the issues of 1972 and 1986, you would find that Minnie did, in actual fact, get “the slipper” for her feeble yet hilarious endeavours at truancy. In later issues, she would have been subject to a grounding and laterly she is forced by her father to sit on the “the naughty step” as is the current fashion. Frankly, we prefer the intial old-style punishment but we’re not allowed to espouse child beating anymore, so that’s the end of that.
Anyway, we digress. These infringements must cease. Your brother is already on his second warning, after his disgraceful attempt to emulate the actions of Bash Street kid hero, Plug, by doing his level best to go to sleep in his school uniform so as to save crucial minutes in the morning, and voiding the need to get dressed. You will find, should you ask your brother, that our reprisal is swift and merciless. And not at all funny.
Rest assured, our lawyers have been informed and you will be hearing from them in due course.
Yours sincerely
DC Thompson
(Owners of the Beano and all the Characters and jokes there-in)
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Chronicles of Junior Misssy
Aslan: Always “Happy to Help”All of a sudden I have become acutely aware that my little girl is growing up fast. Little teeth are getting wobbly, she’s finishing nursery and moving on to school and she’s becoming a lot more independent.
The kids and I went to the cinema tonight and my girl showed there was still a lot of baby left in her, though. Jnr Misssy just can’t sit still in the cinema, and within ten minutes of the film starting, I had taken her to the toilet, taken her for a drink, had to retrieve her shoe from the floor of the row in front of us and had to pick up her spilt sweets from all over the floor to the soundtrack of her wailing.
After fifteen minutes she had given up her seat for my lap, as she always does.
She also talked to me throughout the whole film. Normally, I hate it when people talk through a film but tonight, watching Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, I enjoyed Jnrs commentary immensely. This was, in part, because I realised that I’m not going to have too many years left when my daughter wants to sit on my knee whispering to me, with her arms round my neck and her little hands buried in my hair.
The other reason was her commentary was hilarious. If only it could be an extra feature on the DVD of Prince Caspian.
Highlight One: “Where’s Asda?”
“It’s Aslan”
“Where’s Asdan?”…..
Highlight Two: “Who’s that beaver?”
“It’s a mouse”
“Well, it looks like a beaver to me”……
Highlight Three: “Are the bad men good yet, can I open my eyes?”
“I’d give it a minute”…..
Highlight Four: A little centaur with blond hair and a beard walks on screen, he says nothing, just blows a little horn. Junior Misssy absolutely cracks up laughing in an otherwise silent cinema. Really cracks up. The shot changes to something else, then returns to the little centaur and Jnr Misssy cracks up even more.
I’m reviewing Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian on the radio this Saturday…better read some newspaper reviews beforehand so that I can pretend I was paying attention….
(Podcast here)
********
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Sshhhh!
I did speak, but just to a small team of lucky listeners. Pretty much my parents and grandparents were the chosen few, give or take and uncle or two. I never spoke to anyone I didn’t know well.
Just about every school report card I got from school had the words “quiet” and “conscientious” peppered throughout them. Anyone in the teaching profession will be able to tell you that these are codewords for “I haven’t a clue who I’m reporting on as clearly they have made no impression on me whatsoever”.
Everything changed around the age of about twelve when I decided that chatting might be a laugh, and shyness could, in the words of the Morrissey, stop me doing all the things in life I’d like to. But the turning point is not what I want to focus on. I’ll do that another time.
Despite my turn to the chattier side of life, I still like quiet and there are periods of time where I like to be quiet and not engage in conversation. Indy, my son is the same, and I’ll happily share my quiet time with him. Not chatting.
I do, however, have two key players in the Flying Martinis that don’t like to be quiet at all, ever. One is Meeester. That’s fine-my choice- opposites attract and all that and I often send him off to chat to people when I can’t be bothered. The other is my actual genetic offshoot, Junior Misssy.
Despite the moniker, she is no more like me than flying air. The girl wakes up chatting, she goes through the whole day chatting, she chats while she eats, she chats in the bath, she chats in the car, she chats on the toilet, she chats when no-one else is there, she chats to the cats, she chats to ladies she meets in the shop, she chats to the snails in the garden, she chats to foreign people who don’t understand her, she chats from January 1st to December 31st with no break except for sleep. And I’ve even heard her chat when she’s doing that.
On holiday she spent a lot of time in her seat on the back of my bike and it was like having an in-bike entertainment system stuck on Talk Radio.
She fell asleep beside me in bed about 30 minutes ago. Up until that point she chatted all through Big Brother (she reckons they should get “kicked out if they say a bad word” Good call, I say) and given that she seemed full of topics of conversation, she was threatening to chat all the way through “My Name is Earl” which is the Favourite Television Show of the Flying Martinis.
I had to gently tell her to stop.
This is a child psychology dilemma. Your chatty kid is driving you daft but you don’t want them to feel that you are not interested in answering any more questions in this particular day. Last question of the day was “Mu-um? Does Harley have kittens in his tummy?” (Harley is our fifteen year old male eunuch cat.) Now, this question is a good one and on it’s own is quite cute. Darling, even.
But I tell you, it must be question number 3,003 today.
And about 1,000 of those questions have been the one that every parent would like to see banned:
“Mu-um, are we there yet?”
Ever since our mammoth journey to Holland, this has been a favourite. But to be asking it when we are going to the supermarket is a bit much.
Because I’m still a quiet wee girl deep down.
Shhhhhh!
