Helicopter Moms: The battle royale

WILMETTE, Ill., Dec. 21 (UPI) --The admonition "be careful what you wish for" strikes every parent at one time or another, particularly when faced with a 5-year-old lying on the floor of a supermarket kicking and screaming for something sweet.

Such was my experience with our first-born daughter who turned into a lovely young woman after being among the most difficult for a parent to raise.

My husband and I like to joke that our eldest daughter belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records for logging the most hours in "time-out." Her many offenses ranged from referring to her parents with an expletive deleted at the age of 3 to annoying dinner guests by crawling under the table and poking their feet.

As a journalist I had no background in child psychology so I looked to others to learn about parenting. My discovery of "time out" as a punishment was thanks to a friend named Sandy who volunteered to look after my daughter one day while I did some shopping. Arriving at Sandy's house after running errands, I found my then-4-year-old sitting at the top of the stairs. Apparently, she had done something wrong and Sandy placed her in "time out."

From that day forward, "time out" became a regular part of my daughter's life until she grew too old to be placed at the foot of the stairs.

Unfortunately, sending a child to "time out" isn't always an option. One of our daughter's talents as a young child involved kicking both objects and people. When she did it under the table at mealtime, we would send her to the stairs. But when she kicked her grandparents in the car on the way to my brother's house for Christmas, we faced a dilemma. My parents thought my husband should have pulled the car over to the side of the road and smacked her. Instead, he threatened various punishments once we arrived at our destination. Unfortunately, the threats went by the wayside because carrying them out would have ruined a family holiday.

When she was too old for "time out," her father came up with the idea of having her write about her offenses in a composition book. Every time she did something naughty, we would place a sentence in the book and have her copy it a number of times.

The book actually served two purposes. Because she was left-handed, writing legibly was difficult for her so the punishment turned out to be an exercise in improving her penmanship. The sentence she was assigned to write 50 or 100 times was designed to reinforce that her bad behavior was unacceptable.

Her composition book highlights a myriad of youthful offenses ranging from "I will not place gum on my father's shirt ever again, never again!" to "I will not moon my mother." Several "chapters" in the book deal with her use of inappropriate language, both spoken and unspoken. There are hundred of entries involving the use of foul or dirty language and promising not to give her mother "the finger" ever again.

At the time, none of her antics was amusing to us but today the sentences are a testament to the difficulty of raising a precocious, headstrong child whose career turned out to be, of all things, writing! Her composition book has become one of my prized possessions. Should the need arise, I could certainly use it to blackmail her.

(Editor's note: Sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're tackling motherhood in the 21st century -- or being tackled by it. This is the latest in a series of reflections by UPI writers.)