Everyone Meet Eli
As a dad you’ll find out quickly that you need a set list of “Punishments” or simple “Threats” that combat misbehavior in your children. Some dads may resort to yelling, taking away beloved toys or the devastating blow of a 30-second timeout. But for me, I like to get a bit creative and have some fun with my meager threats, and in one case I might have gone a wee-bit too far and a great idea ended up backfiring on me.
This grand idea was the creation of a character named ‘Eli.’ On a random sunny day while out in the backyard, I told my son that this Eli fellow lives in the shed in the corner of our yard. I then added that he likes to eat misbehaving children. I again added that he waits in the dark for his next victim. And to take the suspense up a notch, I threw in the fact that he sometimes hides in strange places like under our overpriced SUV in the driveway.
So, I waited for the perfect moment to unleash Eli as a threat against bad behavior, and boy did my son’s erratic behavior in the bath present an ample opportunity. Little H has this incredible ability to go from acting like an absolute angel child of God in the bathtub to immediately turning into the child from the Exorcist. He will splash water, start screaming at the top of his lungs, and sometimes he even spins his head around his body on a 360-degree axis.
On one particular night of this terrifyingly disturbing bath behavior, I coldly and calmly told him that if he doesn’t stop immediately then he will have to spend the night in the shed with Eli. Little man shaped up real quick.
All of a sudden the angel-child version of my son reappeared magically, and we were able to brush his teeth, get him into some cozy PJ’s and have him sip some whole milk as he calmly drifted into dream world.
I went to bed thinking I had won the Dad of the Century award. I was ready to drink out of my World’s Best Dad coffee mug with the confidence of LeBron James after bringing Cleveland a title during breakfast the next morning. But, my wife didn’t share this newfound optimism and was a little skeptical of my Eli approach, and shockingly, the wife was right – this Eli idea was about to backfire.
Here’s the thing, Eli ended up scaring my son a little bit too much. H walked outside near our shed with a sense of trepidation, and would look back at me with fear in his eyes as he said, “Eli in there?” accompanied by some puppy dog eyes. He also came to believe that Eli was posted up in his closet at night and that made him afraid to go asleep. And forget taking the garbage out at night together, because Eli was for sure under mommy’s car and ready to pounce on his next victim.
To get myself out of this Eli predicament, I had to come up with a strategy to undo the damage of Eli. The best I could come up with is that Eli has moved to his Uncle Mike’s house. Yup, just like that Eli was done tormenting children while working out of our backyard shed and decided to relocate. Has it worked you ask? Well, for the most part it has. We go weeks without hearing Eli’s name at the house, but out of the blue the thought will resurface in my son’s mind, and he’ll ask about Eli. My response is quick and clear, “He’s still at Uncle Mike’s house, buddy – no need to worry.” I’m really looking forward to the day we need to convince him it’s ok to visit his Uncle Mike, but I guess we’ll cry those tears when we get there.
The lesson learned here is that sometimes as a dad you can overdo it. You can take things too far and end up creating another problem that is much worse than the original problem you attempted to solve. In the case of Eli, I went from good intentions to creating some minor psychological trauma in my son’s life (not a good look)! Maybe it’s best to work on perfecting the art of a well-timed 30-second timeout.
