Sugar Free

Bob loves Crystal Light Raspberry Tea. I've never really liked it, but whatever keeps her hydrated is fine with me (the kind we buy is caffeine free). Recently though I found out WHY she likes it. She saw that the label said Sugar Free... so she added it. Over a cup of sugar to each pitcher.

I explained that the drink is "Sugar Free" because it had artificial sweetners in it, and told her no more extra sugar.

Bob hates Crystal Light Raspberry Tea.

Consequences for Bear

Struggling to Stand has left a new comment on your post, "Stealing":

I too, feel for you. Would it help to know that bio kids can be that bad?

Oh believe me I know, but thanks.

I think that before worrying about consequences of this instance, you should
find out if there has been more alcohol usage. Being a spy, again, checking the
garbage cans. Although the meds he is on may make the signs of alcohol use more
dramatic?

Oh you know how much I love being a spy. *sigh* The only alcohol left in the house is one wine cooler which I hid in the garage (will be drinking that this weekend believe me!), one bottle of unopened champagne and one unopened bottle of red wine (we only drink white) both from who knows how long ago, both sealed, and both in the locked pantry. So if he is still drinking, he is getting it from friends, not us.

I wonder. Does he just play at thinking anything unlocked is his, or does
he really not get the difference? I bet there are social skill games that help
to teach a "kid" the rules for what is personal and what is public. Maybe as a
punishment you make him play these games. If he already knows, it is a
punishment, but if he doesn't already know it helps him learn...

I have no idea what he really "gets," and what he deliberately does. I'm also not sure what he is capable of learning. I'm assuming that he "gets" stealing, because as far as I know he is not stealing from school; however, his sense of entitlement and impulsivity is a different story. Even at school if he can manipulate others into giving him candy or priviliges he will. His special school has commented a couple of times that because he has earned their highest level - "Merit" student, he gets many privileges. They have found him "taking a mile" with these privileges.

He has often used ignorance of a rule as an excuse at school too. For example, he showed up with lunch (before we were on the free lunch program) and snack/soda money. We do not give him money, and the school knows it. They usually warn us when he turns up with extra cash. At one point we discovered that he had quite a little enterprise going. He had talked me into letting him buy Gatorade powder mix and was mixing it up and putting it in water bottles. He's always drunk a lot of liquids so this slid under our radar. He was selling these, and the homemade goodies he was taking from home, to his buddies at school for extra cash. Many of the kids at school are special ed so the school stopped this. He did not get in trouble because he "didn't know any better." Of course his home campus has no such policy so I'm sure this has/will start up again. It's hard for us to catch the selling of the treats because he could be eating them.

Food is an especially sensitive subject. I know kids of trauma have issues with food and hoarding. I've always tried to be super understanding about this. Kitty's meltdowns especially are usually 10 times worse if food is involved. I know that food is a major control issue too, and as a teen whose life was out of control, I have had problems with anorexia myself. I know Bear feels a strong sense of entitlement about many things, but food is at the top of the list.

After reading this comment I searched his room and bathroom again. Not only has he been lying about doing his chores (like cleaning - don't ask how I know!) for several weeks (I know because the moldy tupperware and empty ice cream container I found last time are still in a bag on his floor), but he had an empty bag of caramels on the floor beside his bed. I can only assume that someone forgot to lock the pantry (probably me).

So where do I go from here? Locking everything up is beyond a pain. Our youngest keeps his bike in the garage so every morning someone has to give him the key to get it (he's up before me and Hubby is usually still in the shower when Ponito is ready to go), and then we have to make sure he remembers to lock it all back up (which he occasionally forgets). Bear often gets up before everyone else or after Ponito leaves, eats and who knows what else, and goes back to bed. I want to just alarm Bear's door, but Hubby is still resistant to this.

I hate that the kids live like prisoners in their own home. I can't keep the doors unlocked when Bear is not home because he immediately goes into the unlocked rooms, before I realize he's home and they aren't locked. The lock that keeps Bear out of the garage, also keeps everyone out of the laundry room, which is a pain, and the humidity in there from running the machines with the door shut is beginning to damage the room and everything in it.

As for the alcohol, an idea I have that probably isn't good, but may spawn
better ideas, is to have your husband offer Bear a drink on Thanksgiving or
Chirstmas, but the drink be 90% water, which Bear would discover upon
drinking. Tit-for-tat. "Well, I thought since you put all that water in my
alcohol, that is the way you like it!" or "It isn't nice to sit down to a
good drink and find it is mostly water, is it?"

We talked about this as an option. Beyond the fact that we don't feel comfortable even implying that it is OK for teens to drink alcohol, I'm pretty sure that Bear would bluff his way through it and in his mind this would be yet another example of what horrible parents we are. Hubby even thought about letting him drink all he wants until he gets sick, but of course there are major health, moral and legal issues with this... and we don't think it would be effective either.

I have thought about doing something similar though. Maybe giving him treats, only to find they are half eaten, or letting everyone else have a slurpee and giving him water - with just a bit of what they're getting. Again, I don't think he would make the connection - he would just see it as yet another example of how mean we are and how much we hate him.

Would it be wrong to put laxatives or something similar in a bag of candy in the pantry and "forget" to lock it? Technically it's a logical consequence for stealing and replacing the item with something else.

Passive Aggressive

I have found that Bear is making me very passive aggressive and I hate that feeling.

I've never liked confrontation, and Bear makes confrontation (when Hubby is not present) particularly odious. So I'm finding myself avoiding him more and more, doing detective work to avoid asking him about things (and maybe to deliberately get him in trouble - although it is him who is actually doing the lying and stealing) , complaining about him here and to adult family members, and sniping at him (for example a TV character was commenting on how being called Ma'am made her feel old, and I "subtly" told Hubby, "See, I'm not the only one who feels that way!" Bear resentfully muttered, "I get it Mom." I told him I was talking to Dad not him. Is that a "teachable moment" or a jab? I don't know. He hadn't done it again since I'd asked him not to last time.).

It seems like he is always mad at me, because I am always getting him in trouble and keeping him from doing what he wants to do. He doesn't seem to make the connection that it is him actually doing the stuff for which he is having to deal with the consequences - not me making up punishments just to torture him. He doesn't like that I hold him accountable and don't start with a blank slate (he calls it holding a grudge). I don't like that I seem to be the only one doing so. Don't get me wrong, Hubby always backs me up, and I'm the "expert" in the family so it's kind of natural that the discipline decisions fall on me, but it gets really old to always be the bad guy/ judge and jury (although I appreciate not always having to be the executioner).

I don't like being around Bear and it is showing more and more. I used to be able to keep it from him, but I'm not feeling like being subtle any more. Of course he's not home much so maybe it's not as noticeable... oh, who am I kidding.

Wish I had time to finish these Medicaid applications. It's probably time to amp up my meds again. Kitty is very linked to my moods too so when I'm irritated and/or depressed she is too. She's had several minor meltdowns this last week that under normal circumstances I would have been able to avoid.

School Assessments and Other Issues

Sept 23rd
ARD/ IEP Meeting - For the school this meeting was supposed to be confirming that Bear's academic classes and IEP did not need any adjustments. Instead I took over the meeting and began talking about all the trouble we had over the Summer (skipping school, sex, drugs, skipping football practice, dropping off the football team at the last minute...). We learned that Bear had failed the first session of Summer school with a 37 and the second session with a 72. The vice principal asked if the class were for credit, and we explained he'd made good grades in the class, but kept failing the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills). The VP stated, that Bear probably knew it wasn't for credit and he didn't really blame him. Uh, thanks for the backup. I'm sure that wasn't the only person Bear got that reaction from though.

Most of those present barely knew Bear. He had spent most of his Freshman year of High School at a special school for emotionally disturbed youth. This year he would be spending the majority of his time at his home campus. I wanted them to be aware that he needed to be well supervised, because I knew he was sneaky and would slip under the radar.

We also reaffirmed that we wanted to have a school assessment done on Bear - cognitive, behavioral, and of course academic. We felt that the school was ignoring, or at least not applying, the many psychological reports we'd brought in over the years. We felt Bear's academic difficulties were being glossed over and that he would be graduating without the skills he needed to survive in the working world. We also felt that there was an underlying issue(or 10) that wasn't being caught that was keeping him from being successful on standardized testing and with anything that involved reading and writing.

November 10th
ARD/ IEP Meeting - This meeting was to talk about Bear's plans for what to do after graduation to determine what courses he needed to be taking. The school had him on the "highschool plan," but Bear wants to go on to college so they talked about what he'd need to do. Of course they didn't really address the fact that he just won't be prepared, because of the type of classes he is taking (applied classes - which are small groups 4-6 students who are studying the same subjects as their regular ed classmates, but are getting just the basics).

We talked about the fact that Bear will not be attending the special school next semester. The special school has stopped being supportive because Bear is only there for a couple of hours two or three days a week so I'm fine with that. One less thing for Bear to hate me for (he blames the fact that he's still in the program all on me - I kept saying he needs the structure).

Minor irritant was the transition plan that Bear's caseworker put together for him because she couldn't find time for him to do it. She made more spelling and grammar errors than Bear would have - and she spelled his name wrong throughout the whole thing.

Assessment was supposed to be done - wasn't. *grr* The whole "team" was a little confused as to how we're supposed to make these decisions without this, and why we didn't delay the meeting until it's done - which we were told would only be a few more days. We're afraid we'll have to have another meeting to redo his schedule at the last minute. I talked to the coordinator of the assessments after the meeting. She wasn't in the meeting and claimed she didn't know the meeting was imminent. She promised to call me the next day to give me a brief summary.

November 11th

Hi Mary,

sorry, I didn't get a chance to call this afternoon, but I wanted to shoot
you an email to give you an overview of Bear's testing results. Academically,
Bear's skills are significantly below age-level expectations. Broad skill
weaknesses were noted. Cognitively, he had a relative strength in fluid
reasoning, which is his innate problem solving ability that contributes to math
development. Also within normal limits was his short-term memory and auditory
processing skills (which underlie language development). Normative weaknesses
were noted in crystallized knowledge, which develops through schooling and
largely based on the investment of other cognitive abilities. Additionally,
weaknesses were noted in long-term retrieval and processing speed as well as
visual processing. Findings indicate that Bear's cognitive weaknesses and
history of mental health issues impeded his performance academically. I will try
to observe him next week and then will write up the report, which will have much
more information and interpretation of data.

Needless to say I'm anxiously awaiting an interpretation of this and how it will effect his school work, and of course the actual report. So of course, this is the e-mail I get over a week later (after I'd left several messages).

November 19th

Hi Mary,

Sorry for the delay in response, but it's been hectic and I've been out
sick. I will have Bear's report written by 12/01, so I can have a copy ready for
you that Wednesday, if you want to come by {Bear's special school for
emotionally disturbed youth} or I can mail it to you. I think {his
home school's counselor} emailed you in regards to scheduling a meeting to
discuss the results and address any questions you have. As for cognitive
deficits, those aren't remediated; Bear will learn to compensate for his
weaknesses through strategies. This, of course, would be an investment on his
part. Academically, the applied classes appear to be a conducive setting in
meeting his learning needs. Hopefully, within those settings they are working on
developing strategies for solving problems and dissecting texts. Bear will need
to learn a systematic way to approach similar tasks, which will help him to
organize and analyze information. I will get the report written, so this will be
more integrated and not so disjointed. Sorry, I know you're eager to get the
results.

Eager? Ya think?!!

Not only am I having trouble understanding what she wrote (and I have a Masters and a very big vocabulary!), but "for some reason" I find this extremely frustrating.

Then I got this e-mail after sending out an e-mail about Bear's recent theft.

Mary,

Thanks for sharing the update about Bear. I will let Bear's Home campus' Support Counselor, know about what is going on with Bear. I think it would also be helpful for the campus to have consent to speak with his outside therapist. If this is okay with you, I can send home a consent form for you to give the school permission to communicate back and forth with Bear's outside therapist.

Should I give the access to Bear's therapist? We're struggling to get everything done as it is. Do I want to potentially be left out of the loop?

Guess there is nothing to do but wait. This stinks!

Stealing

I feel like we keep locking the barn doors after the cows are already gone. Bear, our 16 yr old RAD son, has been busted yet again, and we don’t know what to do next.

We recently discovered that he has been raiding Hubby's rarely used bottle of Grand Marnier (an expensive liquor) that Hubby keeps in a top shelf in the pantry. Bear had been drinking it and replacing it with water, and had finally drunk so much that Hubby (who rarely drinks it) finally noticed.

When confronted, Bear admitted to having drunk it, but claims it was only this Summer and not recently (a lie although it did probably start this Summer). I think he’s just saying this because he’s hoping that there won’t be consequences for something that happened in the past (He’s done this before – confessed to doing drugs in the house... over a year ago . When this happened in residential treatment, he was actually praised for confessing that he was using chewing tobacco. We pointed out that while, no, he hadn’t been caught and therefore didn’t HAVE to confess, his supply was almost out anyway and this way he got “extra credit” and no consequences.).

We feel stupid for leaving the bottle accessible, but he’d shown no interest in alcohol before (yes, lame excuse, but we don’t want to live like we’re wardens in a residential treatment center – he’s supposed to be better).

So what should we do for consequences?


We did cancel his ROTC meet this weekend that he was going to be allowed to skip weekly therapy for.
Because of his food stealing, the week before this discovery we’d put locks on several doors in the house that prevent access to the area we kept the alcohol in (he drank all the alcohol so that was no longer a concern anyway).

He’s not on line of sight supervision, but he’s pretty close, so grounding wouldn’t make a lot of difference. We could take his house phone privileges, but that’s not a very logical consequence. He’s already working on a DARE project at school. He’s already been to visit prisons while he was in residential treatment. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings would probably trigger his C-PTSD issues, but we could probably work around everyone else’s schedules to get him there. He doesn’t have a cell phone, will probably never be allowed to drive a car at this rate… I don’t know what to do. If we don’t do anything I know he will feel that he has “beat the system and won.”

Since he usually doesn’t commit the same offense twice I’m freaking out over what he’ll do next. We don’t want to be jailers/ wardens. None of his siblings deserve to live in a prison, but neither do they deserve to have their stuff stolen.

Mary



Back story if you’re interested:
A few weeks ago, several PS2 controllers that I’d confiscated from the boys for breaking who knows what rule (probably having food in the playroom and not getting off when their time was up), were discovered to be missing. Since Bear is the only one who steals, and he usually prefers to steal family electronics, we assumed that it was him that did it. I searched his room and the garage, but didn’t find them. I’m now assuming he sold, traded or gave them away – I don’t even want to think about for what. Bear has finally stopped hiding most stuff in his room because he knows I search occasionally, but the junk food I always find in there, I feel he is flaunting in my face.

Recently I’d gotten tired of finding icing containers, candy wrappers from entire bags of candy, moldy food, ice cream containers, etc. in his room that, added to the missing controllers to me said it was finally time to alarm his bedroom door. Hubby was against it. When confronted about the food, Bear says he’s a growing boy and hungry in the middle of the night. Bear officially stopped growing 2 years ago (his growth plates are closed). What he is taking is all sweets (which we rarely have in the house anyway). We’ve discussed the fact that he has an addictive brain and at the moment his addiction appears to be sugar (although it has also been drugs, tobacco, and apparently alcohol…). He’s never been a good sleeper and the idea of him wandering the house at 3 am is nerve wracking.

We’re taking him off of Seroquel (which he’s been on for over a year) since it’s been known to increase appetite, but it’s also known to help with sleep so I’m worried he’ll be up even more. Not to mention he’s highly volatile emotionally right now so I’m nervous about taking him off of one of his mood stabilizers (he’s still on Lamictal, Trileptal and Amantadine). None of the sleep meds he’s ever taken have helped him sleep (he’s on 6mg of Melatonin right now- the max).

As a compromise, last week I put key locks on the pantry and inside garage door. This means that he no longer has access to food in the middle of the night except for approved snacks. Everyone was so excited because we can finally have ice cream in the house again. It also means he will not have access to the garage or outdoors (all outside doors and windows are alarmed. The garage was too, but the new lock now prevents him access to the control panel where he could turn off the chime that goes off when a door is opened. We’re not sure if he’d discovered that feature of the downstairs control panel, but better safe than sorry). So he can no longer hide stuff in there or steal tools.

There are several big problems with the new system. One, it means we’re constantly having to let someone in to those rooms. I guess we could leave them open when he’s not home, but most likely that means we won’t remember to lock them later. Two, in his mind it means that anything not protected is OK for him to take. In fact he apparently feels it is permission to take it.

Carrot Cake

Note: This is not a picture of the cake I made. This is just a funny picture from one of my favorite websites Cake Wrecks. A neighbor loaned me the new book and it is just as funny as the site.

This was the yummiest, moistest healthy carrot cake I have ever made. We had it for our 3 yr anniversary of the day Bear and Kitty moved in with us. (I still can’t believe it’s only been 3 years!). I tripled the recipe and used the extra in muffin cups for snacks – icing wasn’t necessary (but still yummy). (Sorry it took me so long to post the recipe!)

Carrot Cake

Blend together
2 cups sugar (I used Splenda)
1 cup yogurt (I used fat free – plain).
4 eggs (I used 2/3 cup egg beaters)

Add and blend.
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour (I use whole wheat)
2 cups grated carrots
Optional:
1 small can crushed pineapple (optional)
Raisins and/ or walnuts or pecans (optional and to taste)
Pour in greased pan and bake at 350. (25 minutes for sheet cake to 50 minutes bundt cake). If it jiggles, it’s not done.

Icing (I was lazy and whipped some fat free cream cheese into a reduced sugar cream cheese frosting from the store).
Blend.
½ cup yogurt
2 tsp vanilla
1 8 oz package cream cheese
Add and blend.
1 ½ cup powdered sugar
1 cup finely minced pecans (optional)

OK, now I'm hungry for cake again!

Christmas Traditions - 3 gifts

Our Family Christmas Traditions:Groovin' to Christmas music!

Christmas Pictures -

Many years ago, Bob had a huge growth spurt just before our first family Christmas picture. I wanted her to wear something nice (I was thinking green velvet). We went to a thrift store and the only thing that fit her was an evening gown (adult size 2 - she was only 9). We take a family picture every year (posted about this recently - and there's one at the bottom of my blog) and evening wear became a tradition, but the boys are totally against it. This year we are finally opting for a more casual look.

Christmas Tree -

We usually put the tree up on Thanksgiving weekend and try to take it down New Year's day. This definitely doesn't mean everything is put away right away. We've been known to be thinking about whether or not we should decorate the tree with hearts for Valentines' day. I admit I am a perfectionist so I pretty much do all the decorating myself. This is an old picture from when we decorated with stuffed animals so I didn't have to worry about broken glass ornaments.

Presents under the tree -

We usually don’t put presents from the parents under the tree until after the kids have gone to bed on Christmas Eve (keeps them from being tempted to peek or compare). This started more because we were procrastinators than because we wanted it to be a tradition, but it stuck. When the kids were little we had to put the presents in a playpen (one year we put the tree in there too) to keep them safe. For a long time we wrapped each child's gift in the same paper so they knew which ones were theirs even if they couldn't read yet. That way the youngest child could play Christmas elf and hand out the gifts to be opened.

Jesus's Birthday Party

On Christmas Eve we celebrate Jesus' birthday with a party. Everyone writes on a piece of paper what they are going to give Jesus this year. Kind of like a New Year's Resolution. Each person can choose to read theirs outloud and then we put the paper on the tree. Next year we'll read them and see how we did. Then we all eat birthday cake (helps my antsy ones sit through this, knowing there's cake when it's done!) and open our Christmas Eve present. I didn't do so well with mine. You can read last year's gifts here.

Christmas Eve Gifts

We have a family tradition of giving Christmas Eve gifts. This is usually a pair of new pajamas and a book (was a toy or stuffed animal back when they couldn't wait until Christmas to open a present). I think my parents did this so we wouldn't have on ratty pajamas in the "Christmas morning gift opening pictures."

Santa Claus

Santa brings stocking stuffers (although the kids know that Mommy and Daddy always add things to these too – that way I don’t have to worry about them having seen me purchasing something!) and one big unwrapped gift (so they know it's from Santa) for each of the kids. Last couple of years though, he has brought one big present for the whole family. One year it was a Husky dog (named Scarlet Claus). Last year it was a big plasma screen TV. My kids learned very early that if you don't believe in Santa, that’s OK, but you better not say so out loud or he doesn’t bring you presents! Sadly, I don’t think any of my kids believe anymore. Last year we had a lot of trouble with Kitty thinking I'm a liar because I say Santa is real.

Opening Gifts

We open gifts on Christmas morning. Kids can get up anytime after 5am (*eek*) to run downstairs and look at their gifts. They can open their stockings and quietly play with their Santa gift. They are NOT allowed to wake anyone especially parents (we were usually up until the wee hours wrapping presents!). When everyone is present (no pun intended) we all take turns opening gifts so everyone can watch.

Three Gifts
A few years ago we decided to start only giving 3 gifts to the kids on Christmas morning. (It was good enough for Jesus!). It has helped us me out in many ways (the kids are not quite as fond of it).

1. Taken some of the focus off of gifts and put it back on the “reason for the season.”




2. Reduced some of the pressure to get the exact same number and equivalent gifts for each of my 4 children (I remember my sisters and I counting gifts on Christmas Eve – cost wasn’t as important).




3. Decreased the clutter. My adopted children can’t handle too much stuff in their rooms or lives.




4. Reduced the cost! Christmas is expensive enough with 4 kids.




5. Made shopping easier. It’s HARD to find presents for teenage boys (assuming that like us you do not want to buy expensive electronic stuff he’s only going to break or lose anyway and/or can’t handle – ask me about the cell phone bill and texting birth family and girlfriends at 2am!).




6. Less wrapping!



7. Less time sitting watching everyone open presents (better for my ADHD kids).

Usually at least two of the three gifts that the children get are “themed” gifts. So it’s more than one item in the package. For example, one year several of the children started private school, so one of the theme gifts was school supplies – each had a personalized and decorated magazine holder for their workbooks that held the coolest pens, pencils, staplers and other supplies I could find (think glitter, sparkles, rabbit fur and lights), and stuffed with paperbacks from the used book store that I knew each would like. Bear, who was not going to the private school, got an art set – colored pencils, artist’s notebook, book about drawing, sketchbook…. Kitty needed a new bed so her gift was a bed (used) and all the bedding (we just put a big bow and her name on it). Bear got a bike (we actually wrapped that – LOL). Bob got her first set of contacts. Ponito loved dragons, so he got a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt with dragons on it, a bank in the shape of a dragon, and a kite in a dragon shape. Here's another post about this.

The cost of the gift seems to be largely unimportant – the most envied (meltdown inducing) gift was a box of highlights that one daughter got and the other (RAD) daughter didn’t. Kitty got very expensive makeup that year, but all she cared about was the highlights (which I thought would show up too much in her gorgeous black hair, compared to Bob’s dishwater blonde where they would blend in). Here's the post about it if you're interested.

Braided Cinnamon Roll Christmas Trees - YUM!!

Another RAD parent was feeling guilty about not wanting to buy gifts for her RAD child who tore everything up and had horrible behavior. She had other non-RAD children that she wanted to get nice gifts for.

My advice: I’d say go for cheap gifts from the dollar store. The bigger the better. Personally I appreciate the fact that Bear is death on electronics and Kitty loses everything, because it means I can just buy cheap replacements the next Christmas or birthday and don’t have to get creative or worry about them having cluttered rooms they can’t handle.

No Ma'am! Yes Sir.

Here in the South, kids are expected to address their elders as Sir and Ma'am. This isn't the way I grew up though, and to be honest it makes my hiney cringe (as Pioneer Woman would say) when people call me Ma'am.

One thing that was so hard for me about reading a lot of the attachment books like Nancy Thomas is that they recommend having the child treat you like a queen. That just doesn't feel right to me. I want my kids to love me and while I know that to do that they also need to respect me, I just don't feel right demanding it.

Still, Bear especially does have a better relationship with me when I am assertive and hold him accountable. When he first got here I wanted him to like me. I catered to his needs and tried to make him comfortable. I was lenient and accommodating. He saw me as weak and manipulatable. Once I realized he actually preferred one of his teachers who called him a turd when he was being a turd, it was easier for me to be authoritative. And when I realized my other children needed protection from him, I became more like a Mama Bear (no pun intended).

I still hate confrontation though. If Hubby is around then I prefer to have Hubby be present when I have to talk to Bear about something he's done wrong. Otherwise I'm tempted to be kind of passive aggressive about it. I'm working on it.

__________________________

So back to the beginning of this post.

When I was a kid, my mom remarried. Her husband was 9 years older than she and at the beginning of their marriage, she always said, "Yes Sir" or "No Sir." Very respectful, but it mad me upset. I'm not sure if it was because I thought this was a sign of a bad relationship, if it was because I saw my strong Mom being submissive, or if it was because I was used to having a father figure that I could boss around (my dad was a weekend daddy) and not someone in authority. (FYI, after over 25 years of marriage she doesn't call him Sir anymore).

When the kids first got here, Bear would occasionally say "Yes sir" or "Yes Ma'am" to Hubby or I, and I would gently correct him. He stopped.

Now, 3 years later he's started this again. Some of this I'm sure is because of the ROTC. He's supposed to call everyone by a very respectful Sir and Ma'am. But I strongly believe that some of it is to distance himself from us. I think he doesn't want to use a more familiar or affectionate form of address.

What do you think? Should kids say "Yes sir" or "Yes Ma'am" to their parents?

I've already made up my mind. I'm MOM, not Ma'am.