"I'm not your friend mama!" is something I hear in my house way more often than I should admit. I don't know where he got the idea, but my guy is convinced that not being my friend is the biggest insult in the world. I see so many posts on Facebook saying "my child is my best friend" but this is no where near the situation in my house. I love doing things with my son and we have a great time together but he is not my best friend
My son is very strong willed, and extremely creative...which is the worst combination in existence! He has been a people watcher since day one; he is always watching, learning, trying to figure out exactly what someone's buttons are. When it comes to me, he knows exactly what to do to make me furious or to make me melt. But more often than not he is trying to make me furious. He knows how to push me until I lose my temper and then he gets punished for it. That's when I get informed that I am not his friend.
I would much rather have a fun time with my son and ignore the things he does to get himself in trouble. Especially because some of those things are extremely inventive and often very funny. (Learning to not laugh, and keep my serious face on has been one of the most trying parts of parenthood to date.) However, I feel that if I don't keep him in line, I'm not doing him justice as a good parent. He has to learn that society has rules that he has to stay within to interact as a functional person in our culture.The result of this is a lot of time outs, a little more yelling then I'd like to admit, and the occasional hands slap when things have really progressed too far. After the, we both take some time and space to calm down I like to sit down and talk with him. We discuss what the choices he made were and why those were not great choices. We have regular conversations about how we get mad at each other, but we still love each other because that's what families do
I don't know if I've been told "I love you" or "I'm not your friend" more. I try to always keep in mind that we may not like each other at the moment, but that doesn't change how much we love each other. I may not be his best friend, but I'm very proud to call him my son.