You Won't Find This in Any Parenting Books

First, This is another example of what to do when you want to save a letter, a picture, a scrap of paper. But the clutter can get to be too much. Plus, when it gets stuck in a drawer or an envelope, sometimes it is never seen again.

Now, more importantly, to the story.

Max has a tendency to panic the night before a big assignment is due. It gets a little ugly here, with tears, and some yelling. The ridiculous part is, that even as it is happening, you know, KNOW, that at some point, he'll stop, suck it up, and write the assignment. And, get a good grade to boot. So, how, dear Lord, to skip step one, and move straight to the sucking it up? Well, Dave took the matters into his own hands, and wrote a contract for Max to sign. Some of you sensitive parenting types might have to look away for a moment.

He wrote:

I, Max Deutsch do hereby affirm that whenever I have a writing assignment about which I am unsure, I have a massive fit, act obnoxiously to my parents, yell at them, and waste time by insisting that I don't know what they do, and they don't know what to do. Ultimately, I do what they say, and I do fine. Therefore, from now on, when i have such an assignment, I will remember this, and hopefully will skip the obnoxious complaining and insulting, and go straight to listening.

Max changed a few things (photocopied onto the layout below), e.g. "the amazing complaining and complementing," and signed it Mr. Rockenbottom. So, i don't think he was too offended.

Shortly thereafter, Max wrote his own contract for Dave, (I have left his spelling and grammmar) which states:

I Hearby declare me David Aaharon Deutsch A Huge cheater and fat stinkypants that is always scared of Max Wolf Deutsch, my son when he scares me. Also, I don't care about my kids and give them mashed broccoli like food and say I'm kissing them when I'm eating there faces off.

Dave signed it, Baron Von Stinkypants, AKA The Fatso.

So, people, this is who I live with.

You won't find this in T. Berry Brazelton's books, but it has worked. And my kids are funny.