A recent long road trip saw The Monkeys in the back of the car squabbling.
Not the kind of squabbling that can easily be ignored, and conversation continued on and over. No. The kind that needs a turn of an adult head, a slight narrowing of the eyes and some tough words thrown at them. Yep, tough words.
Nope. Didn’t work.
Step two. Explain to them this is how it was going to work. If things continued like this, and at that noise level of bickering, desperate measures would have to be taken… Yep, desperate measures.
Nope. That didn’t work either.
Step three. Ok, really desperate measures.
Jelly snakes.
I first read of this drastic measure on Myrtle & Eunice. I laughed so hard reading it, and vowing it was a brilliant idea and was sure to be used on our own road trips down the track. Well here we were, down the track.
Crunch time. With noisy arguing kids in the back, a long way still to drive, and a bag of jelly snakes on my side. Well it was time wasn’t it…
It was jelly snake time.
The rules were simple. Every time they yelled/ argued/ annoyed one of us. A snake would lose it’s life. Tossed out the window without a second thought. The Monkeys looked on with wide eyed horror as the rules were laid out. Surely mama wasn’t serious?….
It was quiet… for a whole two minutes, and then the inevitable had to happen. The squabbling started up again and a snake had to go. No more warnings, no more threats, no more laying down of the rules. The rules were set and they had just been broken. Quickly and painlessly the snake was thrown. There was a collective gasp from all of us. From The Monkeys realising I had actually followed through with it and from Mr Chocolate and I on the realisation that there was no way I could slip that snake from its precarious open window seat to Mr Chocolate’s willing and open mouth.
The snake was thrown and peace reigned for the next three hours.
It only took the one.
*And I am very sorry to the person driving behind us who got a surprising jelly snake splat on his windscreen.
cityhippyfarmgirl 
Hee hee, ROFL Poor Mr Chcoolate, but all worth it eh? What a great story Brydie. I once took a friend’s kids to a petting farm, and they started pushing and shoving on the back seat and wouldn’t stop. So I stopped the car by the side of the country road and said. “Get out”. They got out. I said if you want to get back in, sort out whatever it is out here and if you can’t you’d better stay here.” “You wouldn’t” they said. “Wouldn’t I?” I replied. They were just young enough to believe me. And we had a great time the rest of the day. But those were someone else’s kids, I don’t think I could fool anyone I knew.
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The sacrafice of one old jelly snake was well worth it. The return journey they were as good as gold too 🙂
I dread when The Monkeys get older and those tactics don’t work any more though.
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Oh, very clever! We’ve stolen an idea from Miss M’s Kindy teacher… we write the name of something, like dessert, on our fridge whiteboard and if they misbehave they lose a letter and potentially whatever treat or good thing altogether! If they can behave really well, they might earn back a letter…
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I like that idea as well Dixiebelle. Maybe there should be a book, “ways to control the little ones”.
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Love that!!
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Love it CHFG! The power of the snake.I will ignore the environmental impact of littering (tee he). Would work a treat with our crew too. x
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Some kookaburra just got the tastiest snake he had ever encountered.
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I LOVE it! Such a cool idea – I almost wish I had children so I could try it out for myself! Tough love rules – go Brydie : )
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Annoying partners… lecturing parents… irksome travel companions- I don’t think it’s limited to kiddo’s Keri 😉
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Isn’t it the BEST? My favourite part of the whole strategy, is you don’t have to open your mouth over warnings or any of that malarkey. And it’s a jaw on the floor reaction, every time. Blessed relief.
On our camping trip it took my kids two snakes. Slow learners. I checked the rear vision mirror before tossing ’em, though.
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Tania thanks for letting the world know about it. Without that golden manouvre my ears would have bled. Instead, one snake lost it’s life and calmness reigned…. there will definitely be repeats.
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Oh how I am laughing at this 🙂 I’m tucking it away in case I ever have children! So very funny. I only wish for my poor parents’ sake they knew of it when we were younger…my mother occasionally stopped the car until we were quiet, but I think this would have been more effective!
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Much more effective! Who wants to see their favourite sugary treats slung out a moving window? Not I.
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Classic disciplining – could even work for adults but you might need to up the ante and run the risk of throwing out fresh truffles or whole legs of ham.
I’d love to have been there to see the horror on their faces and the speedy calculation they made that you mean proper business. Mind you despite being rather well behaved children, my mother did once pack her toothbrush and a change of clothes and drive off into the night leaving my brother and I howling…she came back not long after of course, but there’s the next extreme of parenting…
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I can think of a few adults that may respond to this same theme of disciplining…
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brilliant – I was a bit worried with the title of the post but I just love that you followed through – I think children learning the consequences of their actions is a great way to not only discipline them but to teach them that they actually need to be careful about what they do.
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and from then on in, they were verrry careful 🙂
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Parenting where it hurts the kids BAD! Good job.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
🙂 Mandy
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You too Mandy.
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I guess it’s better than threatening to tie a kid to the roof rack like my parents used to.
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Nah, you have to be able to follow through it. I’m sure there are all sorts of legal problems with the old roof rack line.
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I love this.
Squabbling children need a little drama from the front seat- and here you gave them an object lesson. Anyone who would throw a delectable jelly snake out the window is unpredictable- who knows what or who else could be dispensed with in a similar fashion???
Your monkeys are really quick learners. 🙂
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Heidi, they realllly like those snakes!
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Too funny, I wish I had read this one about 16 years ago… it would have come in handy:)
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Pass it on to a parent in need 🙂
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Fabulous! I must remember that one for when I have children…
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Ha ha, brilliant. Although couldn’t the rules have been that the snake went into Mr Cs mouth rather than out the window? Am a bit worried about launching onto your blog – first worms now snakes :-S
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I tried. The car is too big, I couldn’t do the sneaky hand shuffle. Mr Chocolate gasped too on the throw.
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Very clever! Although if this parenting technique catches on , we are going to have some very hyperactive kookaburras on roadsides gorging themselves on lolly snakes, so we will have to make sure they are the natural confectionary kind.
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ALWAYS the Natural Confectionary kind. Is there any other jelly snake worth eating?
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“If you argue, a snake must die!!” 😉
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Ah, road trips as a kid. My poor parents…
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if only i’d known about this when my children were fighting and complaining in the back seat of the car..oh well..maybe i can use it on the grandchildren if my children ever get around to producing any..:)
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I’m sure they will Jane and you will be the coolest Granny around 🙂 …with snakes in hand of course.
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Wow – I’m impressed with the strength of your convictions – wish I’d thought of that in years gone by. But tell me, you didn’t ditch a red one did you???
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Never. Always yellow to go first.
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I remember my little brother being kicked out of a car and told to walk home once. It was threatened many times, but this time it had to be done. Mind you, he was about 10 and it was only ten minutes walk from home and he knew the way. I’d like to say he learned his lesson, but…
I was the good kid 😛
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Me too Betsy. It’s good to be the good kid.
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Ha ha that is absolutely priceless. I wish my kids were still young enough for that to work! We don’t get a lot of squabbling, but when it happens….
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LOL that is brilliant! :O I would have been similarly horrified about the discarding of a sugary being’s life! 😛
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Oh…the dreaded road trip. I’m afraid that as a family, we’ve given up on them. When we’re in a large open space we get along quite nicely. Put us in a confined space and it’s all we can do to avoid a homicide. I know your pain!
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I wouldn’t have thought CHFG was a litterer!
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Love it 🙂 I must remember to do it!
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Fantastic!! I’ll tuck this into my long haul arsenal for future trips.
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Great idea! I once threatened to throw out my children’s toys as we had been having the ‘clean the bedrooms’ argument. The follow through was grabbing a pin, some inflated balloons they’d been given and a garbage bag. After popping the smallest balloon and trashing it then reaching for the next one toys began disappearing into cupboards and toyboxes and books into the bookshelf. I never had a chance to be near the toys I really didn’t want to throw away!
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lovely post and really effective idea 🙂
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What a great idea!!! You need to share this with the world.
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