The lawyers' kid

The other evening the boys and I were leaving a nice little event at their elementary school, where we'd had a perfectly wonderful time. But Charlie did not want to leave. So he whined. He cried. He lagged 20 feet behind me and Joe. He turned around and tried to go back inside the school until I gave him the evil don't-you-dare-do-it-you-can-bet-that-I-really-mean-it eye. So then he whined and cried some more over the unfairness of it all.

So I informed him, calmly (I've taken a parenting class, and that's what they say you should do, always be calm), that if he continued to whine and cry he would be going to bed early the next night, because clearly he wasn't getting enough sleep if this sort of thing caused him such grief.

You guessed it. Not a minute later he was at it again. And then again. So I lowered the boom -- early bedtime the next night -- and that REALLY got him going. Can you say downward spiral? Now he was whining, crying, throwing a fit, and trying to argue with me.

"I did NOT continue to whine."

"Charlie, you are whining right now."

"I did NOT continue to whine! And I do NOT have to go to bed early!"

"Charlie, do not argue with me. You are whining now. And you are going to bed early. That's that."

"I DID NOT CONTINUE TO WHINE!!!!!"

"CHARLIE!!!" (regain composure and calmness) "I am not going to argue about it. The discussion is over. I'm not going to listen to anything else about it."

After some length of time of ignoring him, the whining sort of stops. But he keeps talking, half to me and half to himself.

"I did not continue to whine. I stopped. Then I started again. Then I stopped. Then I started again. That is not CONTINUING."