On listening issues, remembering, and not being a jerk

There was a conversation around twitter last week/earlier this week about not raising a jerk. I thought about this a lot last night while my son was screaming like the world was ending while in time out for telling me his rice tasted like pee. This was the latest issue in a trying evening, What do you do?

It started out when I picked him up from aftercare and his white school polo was orange. ORANGE. He had ravioli when he got there and I do not know how he possibly could have spilled that much on his shirt but the whole thing was orange – I should have taken a picture before I doused it in Oxyclean. There was even a spot on his back.

But I didn’t make a big deal about it, I just made him change when we got home, and decided that he would be changing his clothes at after care from now on. Then I asked him what he did at school. Over the summer at VPK he was having trouble remembering what he did, so we started by telling me what he ate for breakfast and lunch, and two things he did. Every day. By the end of the summer he could actually remember what he ate, so it felt like a win (although I was aghast at what passes for breakfast – protein bar and juice for a five year old?). I’ve kept it up in kindergarten and even though he eats a little something at home he still eats something there too (yesterday: Danimals yogurt, French toast, juice, white milk) and I ask him to tell me what he had for breakfast and lunch (lunch is easier to monitor if he’s telling me the truth because I PACK IT) and two things he did. When we were talking about lunch he told me he didn’t drink his Capri Sun but he threw it away. I tried to tell him that in the future, if he doesn’t eat or drink something I pack for him, he should bring it back home with him. This started World War XIII, because he couldn’t seem to listen to that small instruction. Instead he was bouncing on one foot, twirling in circles, fidgeting with his socks. I know that some kids think better when they fidget – Not My Kid. When he’s fidgeting, he’s only thinking about the fidget and can’t concentrate on “bring your capri sun home”. This spawned a half hour of screaming about listening and him screaming because Time Out is a death sentence, apparently. It was bad.

So the outcome is that I will say something. He will repeat it. Ad nauseum. It will get old quick, but I’m hoping that like the breakfast/lunch reciting, it will actually keep things in his head. For a child that remembers everything always, concerning actual knowledge, you’d think that “things that would keep me out of trouble” would rate high on the remembering scale. You’d be wrong.

And then we sat down for dinner and he told me his rice tasted like pee. Any suggestions on how not to raise a jerk?