Uriah Vs. The Puzzle

Something I am learning over and over again as an online creator, and even as a parent, is that everyone has an opinion, and few people are shy to share theirs. Recently, I’ve been sharing mine and Yvette’s journey with our second eldest, Uriah, and the disciplinary issues we have faced as a family.

Notice in that bit above where I say “as a family.” That’s because Uriah’s bad behavior is not just our burden as parents, it’s his burden and his siblings. We have a family culture we have worked as a collective to establish. It was very important to Yvette and I, who did not want to perpetuate the dynamics we were born into, to foster a culture of mutual respect, not just between us and our children, but between siblings as well.

On December 28th, my two oldest sons started fighting. The fight was intense enough that it disrupted the home. My approach to disciplining my children has always been consistency. That’s not to say that every child receives the same type of discipline, because not all of my children respond well to a uniform consequence. That said, my children know what they can expect from me when they break the rules or disrespect someone. The fight Theo and Uriah had disrupted the peace in our home, and made their issue everyone’s issue, so their consequence was to work together as a team to finish a three hundred piece puzzle.

The concept behind this consequence was that they would have to put their differences aside and work together to complete the puzzle, which was the thing standing between them and something they love: television and video games.

Theo and Uriah are very, very different children. Theo approached the consequence unhappily, but got to work on the puzzle. Uriah on the other hand, decided this punishment wouldn’t work for him and let me know that he would be fulfilling his punishment in another way.

This did not work for me. Why? Because in life, we don’t get to choose our consequences. Every action is met with a reaction, whether we like it or not. When we choose against what we know is right, as both my sons did when they got into a fight, they earned a specific type of punishment. This is when I realized that we had reached a pivotal moment for Uriah.

I know people online will say, “they’re kids, they fight!” And “you’re overreacting! It’s not that deep!” To those people, I would say, first and foremost, we are not raising children into children, we are raising them into adults, from the moment they are born. Setting the precedent with my child that he is allowed to pick the punishments that work for him is a huge disservice to him, and to people that have to interact with him once he is no longer a child. My goal as a father is to raise people who make the world better, and that starts with addressing behavior at the source, not when it progresses and manifests itself into bigger, more intense issues because we neglected to teach it to him the first time.

I let Uriah know this was not an option. He would not watch television or play video games until the puzzle was finished. Theo, on the other hand, had finished nearly 150 pieces of the puzzle and was upset because he wouldn’t be able to watch T.V. or play video games until Uriah was done. I felt for my man, out here carrying the group project on his own. That’s when I decided this would be Uriah’s lesson alone, and that Theo would be able to regain his privileges if he finished 150 pieces. Theo ended up learning a lesson of his own, but more on that later.

So here we were, Uriah, Yvette and I standing at a crossroads. Uriah decided he didn’t care, and that he would forego his television and video game privileges for a year if it meant getting out of the puzzle. Yvette and I tried to encourage him to do the puzzle, and in sharing this part of the story online, people responded with things like, “why would you want him to watch T.V. or video games?” It wasn’t that we preferred Uriah watch television instead of reading books or listening to podcasts (two new hobbies he picked up during his tech ban), it was that we didn’t want him to view doing time as a challenge he could push through. We wanted him to take accountability for his actions, own up to his mistakes, and face the consequences he had earned.

The other thing about Uriah is that he doesn’t like follow through. When it was time for him to learn how to tie his shoes, he gave up and decided he would wear slip ons. When his brother learned how to ride a bike, Uriah decided it was too hard and that he wouldn’t be a bike rider (those of you who know, know, about what that did to ME on our family trip to the Grand Canyon). As a father, this is not the type of character I want to instill in my child. Obviously I’m not expecting him to be good at everything, but if he has a desire to learn, I don’t want him to relinquish that desire at the first sign of adversity. I want him to persevere, learn, and triumph.

I’ve said before that physical discipline is something I do not like to implore. I believe that there are more creative, more effective ways to teach my children things in a way that makes both of us feel better. That said, my children do know that if they refuse to cooperate with those more creative consequences, spankings are an option-as a last resort-but an option nonetheless.

Without television and video games, Uriah was listening to his podcasts, reading books, playing board games. He was so into our family nights because everyone would be playing board games together and he found new joy in it. Mans went through his own little renaissance and it was cool to watch. However, it didn’t last long. He had been sneaking to watch T.V., looking through door hinges when his siblings were watching, and playing video games on an outing with his grandmothers. He was impressed with himself for having gotten away with it, and we had unwittingly established the precedent that his punishments were challenges for him to conquer, rather than consequences for him to learn from. This realization that Uriah was trying to manipulate the situation motivated me to address the lack of consistency we had allowed with Uriah. I could tell it was time for Yvette and me to set clearer boundaries with him, but I didn’t expect it to happen in the way it did the next time he misbehaved.

On February 1st, a full month and some change after the original fight, Uriah was acting out while I was at the office. Yvette called me for a pep talk, as discipline is not her strong suit, and she began to follow through with the approach we had decided to take with Uriah.

During homeschool, Uriah was playing with a yo-yo while he was supposed to be paying attention to the lesson. Yvette took the yo-yo away, put it in the closet, and went back to the lesson. Uriah then snuck into the closet, took the yo-yo back, and when she asked him if he had gone and taken it when he knew he shouldn’t, he unapologetically said yes, he had.

Yvette threw the yo-yo in the trash, which is more in line with something that I would regularly do. Uriah responded by saying that he wanted to leave our family, calling Yvette a terrible mother and launching into a full on tantrum. Around 3 PM, I received a FaceTime call from Yvette at our rental house (where we’re staying while our home is under construction), and she said, “Your son is running away from home,” as she showed me Uriah walking down the street.

Obviously, we weren’t going to let our seven year old run away from home. I knew that he wouldn’t actually run away, but I also knew that this was, once again, a pivotal moment for Uriah. So, I packed myself up, hopped in my truck, and frustratingly drove home.

I was incredibly irritated. This child had once again disrupted the culture of the home, disrespecting his mother, her time, his siblings and their learning time, and now me and my time at work. I knew it was important that he fully understand the weight of his actions.

When I got home, Uriah had already come back inside. I asked him what had happened and he explained the situation with the yo-yo and claimed it was unfair. I told him how incredibly selfish it was for him to take up everyone’s time that way, and how disrespectful he had been. His response was that we were disrespecting him by not letting him watch television or play video games. I realized there was a hefty misunderstanding about mutual respect in our household. I informed him that no, that was simply a consequence of his own actions. He responded by saying that he wanted to leave our family and find a new one. I realized that his desire for a new family was the indication that I needed to take a new approach.

I reached my last resort. Uriah had not only disrupted our household culture, he had repeatedly disrespected his mother and siblings, and had endangered himself. It was time for a spanking.

He was beside himself, and I wasn’t in good shape either. Neither of us liked it. I let him cry it out, I comforted him, told him I loved him, but did not apologize because this was the punishment he had earned, and I was not sorry for enforcing it. When he came downstairs, he was still being disrespectful. I decided it was time for he and I to spend some one on one time and remind him of what a privilege it is to be taught by his mother and have the opportunity to learn from her.

So the next day, he went to work with me. We did school my way, with no breaks and no free passes. He was required to finish his work, and he completed a workout with me at the gym. We did three hundred squats, and he said to me, “why is it always three hundred? The puzzle was three hundred, one of the math problems said three hundred, and now the squats are three hundred.” I let him know that if he had just owned up to his original actions and done the puzzle in the first place, he wouldn’t be here. I wanted him to grasp that when we aren’t accountable, that when we don’t face our consequences, those consequences get worse, and more often than not, life sends us the same lessons over and over again until we learn from them. I was willing to take him with me to work all week if I had to, and the puzzle was no longer optional. He was to work, eat, sleep, and complete the puzzle.

Meanwhile, after Uriah had received his spanking, Theo was upset. He didn’t like seeing his brother hurt. I realized that even though Theo had been allowed to watch T.V. and play video games, he had still endured a longer consequence than expected because he A. Had to watch his brother hurt, and B. Didn’t have his buddy to play with. Though it wasn’t the original way I planned to make them exercise teamwork, they each got their own lessons about how much better, and worse, things can be when they work together versus when they fight. While we were at my office, Theo started working on the puzzle again. The boys ended up working together after all, and a few nights later, I came home to the boys placing the final piece of the puzzle, Uriah celebrating and hugging each of us, and both of them bursting with joy. That night, Uriah was finally able to watch Encanto with his siblings, and he had his brother to thank for it.

Uriah still says that he wants a new family, but that he won’t run away because he’s afraid of a spanking. He’s not scared of me, but he is scared of that particular punishment. This time, it was the punishment he had earned, and my hope is that he can take that experience and allow it to inform his future choices.

As I said before, people online love to share their opinions on our parenting.

I don’t know for sure if I’m doing a good job, but what I do know is that I’m giving my children options.

I’m allowing them to take part in the collective of our family and exhausting every option to teach them how to be good people. The truth is that I know my children better than people who watch them online, because they only get a glimpse.

My goal in sharing this story is the same goal I have for all of my content—not to justify my parenting tactics or situate myself as the expert, but to tell real stories of fatherhood, to equip fathers to love and lead their families into eternity.

Through our struggles and our shortcomings, our lessons and our losses, one thing remains true: We Are Better Together. The chocolate babies are learning that team work makes the dream work, and now you can too with this 100 piece puzzle from Beleaf in Fatherhood to remind you of all the good that can come from working together.

Let Us Do It Dad’s Way