The Parent Trap

AP reports:

The dishes, garbage and dirty laundry would pile up for days when Cat and Harlan Barnard's teenage children refused to do their chores. So the Barnards went on strike, moving out of their house and into a domed tent set up in their front driveway. The parents refuse to cook, clean or drive for their children - Benjamin, 17, and Kit, 12 - until they shape up.

Ok, let me get this straight. The parents move out of the house that they pay for, give up the electric, air conditioning and all the other modern conveniences, in order to teach the children a lesson. I'm hooked already! This is going to be a winner!

Problem number one: the kids' ages. They should have had their butts kicked a long time ago.

Cat Barnard, a stay-at-home mom, and her 56-year-old husband, a government social services worker, decided their children needed to learn about empathy and responsibility.

Problem number two: Dad's a government social worker. Translation: a namby-pamby, bleeding heart, worry about everybody's feelings, new age refugee from the 60's.

Problem number three: mis-identification of the problem. They don't need to learn about empathy. They need to learn about authority and discipline.

The Barnards unsuccessfully tried smiley-face charts and withholding allowances to get their children to do chores. They even sought help from a psychologist.

(Oh God, I'm gonna puke!...smiley faces!) How about a good old-fashioned motivator called a spanking?

The tipping point may have been when Benjamin didn't offer to help his sweating, struggling mother work on the lawn Sunday, even though she should have been recovering from oral surgery.

And where was the freakin' husband? HE should have been doing the grass, not his wife!

Passers-by from this bedroom community between Orlando and Daytona Beach have shouted out words of encouragement. One woman driving past the Barnards' house rolled down her car window Wednesday and shouted "Good for you! You should put the kids outside!"

At least there's one voice of sanity. PUT THE KIDS OUTSIDE!
Better yet, kick the 17 year-old out of the house. Your house, your rules. Don't cooperate? You're outta here. Let him figure out how to fend for himself. You will SO freak out the 12 year old, her behavior will change in a split second. And he'll be back with his tail between his legs.

No one ever said being a parent was easy. It takes two things; guts and a backbone.

Benjamin returned from school on Wednesday to find a dozen reporters in his parents' front lawn. He refused to say anything to them and went into the house followed by his mother, who tried to console him.

The mother tried to console the son?!?? Did I miss something here? He's the embarassment, and she's apologizing? (I rest my case...NO backbone.)

Cat Barnard said she and her husband will keep up the strike until they see some changes.

Well, I've got some bad news, Cat. You're going to be out there quite a while. The kids haven't lost anything! You and your husband are making the sacrifice. You don't think eating TV dinners is upsetting them, do you? Until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change, nothing will happen. Translated for you public school grads, that means the kids need to loose stuff. They need to loose things, BIG things, to make them change (like loosing the roof over their heads). They've got the A/C, the TV, the computers, the Nintendo (X-Box, PS2 or whatever), the refrigerator (the whole house!) AND NO PARENTS!!! Tell me what they see as the down-side to this situation.