Grounded for life.... well, for a week.

Erin just got herself grounded for a week. We told her last night that she was free to play out front on the sidewalk with all the kids who live on this corner. She said that she would instead be going to her friend's house. This friend is not the child of any of the people we know here, so we said that would NOT be happening. She went outside to play, and we were dealing with whatever we had to do inside and in the back yard, and then realized we didn't see or hear any kids anywhere. I looked around for Erin, everywhere in the boundaries she's allowed to play, and she was nowhere. I can't even tell you how many times we've been over this. You don't just disappear. She used to do this all the time at Ft. Stewart, too, no matter what we did. It got to the point that we just couldn't let her out to play anymore.

That was two years ago, though. Surely she's matured past that point now. In our old house here, she had distinct boundaries, and she stuck to them. There were no other kids there, though, and that's the test with Erin. She does great on her own, but add other kids to the mix, and forget about it. She did great here yesterday afternoon, and kind of blew it last night when she went running out of the house and around the corner without telling anyone where she was going.

This morning, she COMPLETELY blew it by just disappearing. She is grounded for a week. She finds this completely unjust and totally wrong, of course, but I'm sorry, she is 7 years old. She cannot just be disappearing and going wherever she wants. I don't CARE what other parents let their kids do. My kid is NOT just running off with the herd. She can play with the herd when they're within sight distance of our house, but not when they aren't. We have had very distinctive conversations about boundaries, and why it's important that she keep to them, and what's good to do and what's not, and stuff like that. It does NOTHING. Absolutely nothing.

I HATE being these mean parents, always the ones who are yelling at our kid and stuff, but she puts us in that position constantly these days. If she would just listen, life would be so much easier. Well, it's going to be a fun week, that's for sure. Grounded kids are not pleasant to be around, but it is what it is. I'd rather be mean now and get ground rules actually pounded into her head when she's young (although I don't know how many more years it's going to take. So far NOTHING works.) than to be doing this when she's older and actually should have the kind of freedom she's wanting now and is not ready for yet.