It has to be universal. Those scratching slashing fits little girls have. I told Jenna to go to her room after five minutes of her not listening and generally going out of her mind. Every time she fights me all the way to her room. I remember being sent to my room and hightailing my behind to my room at light speed. Home free. But not her. "NO! NO WAY! NOT EVER!" she screams as she runs and slithers, and finally when caught, strikes and scratches, until a fit of magnificent proportions blossoms at the foot of the stairs. It takes me dragging her there, kicking and screaming and biting. All I'm trying to do is to direct her anger to one place in the house where she can work it out while she leaves ME the heck alone.
So this time, I finally get her into her room, and she slams the door with a force no one but her father would believe. So hard, in fact, that the door buckles and the bottom half of the door is sticking out toward me while the top half is where it belongs inside the door frame.
"HELP! HELP"
Suddenly she needs me because she's gotten herself in quite a predicament. Essentially, she's locked herself in her room, and no amount of budging by her or me is moving the door. I take the opportunity to go get a glass of water, and wonder if either of the two ways I feel is right: 1) Ha ha. Now maybe she'll learn. 2) Holy shit I'm going to have to call the fire department to get her out of there.
I wait. Tell her through the door that she is GROUNDED for this one. No sleep over. No bike. And this time, I'm really really sticking to it. And this time, she seemed to know it.
It took a few minutes but I managed to jiggle her door so that the bottom popped back into the frame, and I was able to open the door and see her sad-sack face, "I'M SORRY MAMA! I'M SORRY."
"There are consequences," I tell her. "Yours are that you're grounded. No sleep over. No bike."
Five year old girls and fits.
JEESH!!!
