Not Cruel, but a little unusual punishment

Brotherly love is waning thin at our house. I don't know if it is the heat and lack of outdoor playtime or if this is just a phase that they are going through, but my boys have been fighting more than usual lately.

For us parenting is an evolving process. We are constantly reevaluating and changing our policies and punishments. What works for a while never seems to last forever so we are always looking to find a punishment that works. . . and fits the crime. Sometimes it feels like pure inspiration. Other times it is pure desperation.

Last night my boys were fighting (I'm not even sure over what), and I knew Jon was downstairs so I didn't rush to referee, and within a minute or two I could hear him talking to them. I wasn't paying much attention because I was busy on the computer reading and writing messages, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind I was storing tidbits of what was going on downstairs. After another minute or two I started pulling them out of my subconscious and tried to put them together to make some sort of sense. I heard comments like: "Put your nose in the corner" " You too. Right there" "Raise your arm and reach as high as you can" "You two hold hands" "Keep holding hands" "Stand on one foot" "Keep your nose in the corner" "No stay on one leg" . I couldn't quite get a mental picture of what was going on so I left the computer and went down to see for myself.

This is what I saw.





They had to stand this way for 4 or 5 minutes and then hug and apologize to each other. We actually enjoyed the rest of the evening without any fighting! We'll see how tonight goes.