Discipline: Hec Knows What He’s Talking About!
The youngest of my five-terrific-girls, KJ, has appraised you of the situation: I am no longer around on a day-to-day (or any other) basis but that doesn’t mean this man can’t have a say when the need arises. And it bloody well has! Little KJ, a keen astral traveller, keeps me across societal developments, and she reports that all kids - so that includes your bloody kids - are now totally out of control. BUT, if you’re prepared to give this man’s Self-Distancing-Disciplinary-Technique (SDDT) a burl, the dawn-to-dusk shit fights at your place will settle down. Guaranteed.
SDDT In Action! (credit: Flickr, furryscaly)
First up - to get your kids to really sit up and take notice - you have to distance yourself from yourself. Thus, when this man was forced into disciplinary mode, be became (through a simple trick of language realignment) just……. A MAN.*
* Most common examples of SDDT in action at our place:
A MAN can’t guts any more of this…..
Do you hear what A MAN is saying…….?
You’re all giving A MAN the shits….
What’s A MAN supposed to make of this…..?
So, why did this man develop his A MAN- based SDDT? Because this man realised early in the piece that this man was never going to make the grade as an Authority Figure in his own right. Unfortunately, my kids had seen this man play up on more than one occasion. And mine too, I hear you say. BUT -by distancing yourself from yourself - by becoming just A MAN you can attempt to regain control without hypocrisy allegations making a bad shit fight even worse.
Using SDDT, A MAN is always decisive:
For example, if your kids bring inappropriate items home - don’t muck around, TORCH em! One day, this man sighted a book called Papillon on the kitchen table. The fact that this mans’ kids were all pretty good readers, made this man proud so he dipped into Papillon to see what’s what.
This man tried not to get too worked up about the initial stuff about a very rough jail in a far off land. But, when this man got to the part where prisoners were sticking metal containers full of ‘bad’ money up their bums, agitation kicked in: Bugger me, if that’s what they’re doing with it, they’ve got too bloody much!
Then, (note: SDDT proper starts) A MANs’ kids SHOULD NOT be reading this. A MANs’ kids are probably already putting crook school reports and contraband minties where they shouldn’t. A MAN (note: fully realised SDDT) swung into action. A MAN took Papillon into the backyard, struck a redhead and up she went. This man had regained control (note: good example of language realignment marking end of crisis).
Under SDDT, a man sets boundaries - and puts electric fences around them for good measure:
This mans’ girls were all pretty good lookers but number three, Julie Ellen, (’Doolup’) was the standout. And this man knew that Doolup required extra boundary surveillance. One day, this man opened the back door to find a smart arse claiming: I’ve come to see Doolup.
Good, A MAN said (note: SDDT already in emergency subconscious use). But Doolup’s not at home. Last time A MAN saw her, she said she was going up to the Church to dust the tabernacle…..feel like a beer?
Thank you Mr Ross. A MAN and the smart arse had several. A MAN then quietly asked: Like to go duck shooting at Tuckerbill Swamp? That’d be great Mr Ross. Well, that’s good because A MAN can tell you now: only one of us is coming back!
Trust me Doolup, this man hated to see you hurt when the smart arse never came around again but I did what A MAN HAD TO DO. (note: SDDT operating at highest level possible).
A GIRL, Hec’s girl, always loves to hear from you……..
**** If you’ve got any further questions for Hec on SDDT I can pass them on. Perhaps your dear dad formulated his own disciplinary programme. Was it better than Hecs? Are you too scared to try and discipline your delinquent kids? And whose fault is that? Is your place marred by constant shit fights? Describe the last shit fight in a literary fashion….. Anything else…:…
IMPORTANT: DO IT FOR HEC! As you may know, our dear correspondent, Andra, wants to add another gong to my ‘The Bitch Most Likely’ Award I won hands down at Leeton High School in 1972. Andra has nominated kerriejean.com for the prestigious Weblog awards. I am currently in a shitfight to make it to the finals. Just click on this:
( http://2008.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-humor-blog/ )
Ignore all of the pretenders and scroll down quite a bit until you see kerrie.jean.com (and Andra’s elegant nomination). Click on that little green button - and you’re out of there. DO IT FOR HEC!
And to just join in on a normal basis….just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the ‘website’ space - not necessary!
November 11th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
My dad followed the guide “Assertive Discipline for Parents”. Unfortunately he must have failed the evening sessions sponsored by the school. Yes, he was always calm and he did use gesture to add emphasis to his words…rather like a drowning man’s wave. Unfortunately he couldn’t look me in the eye as he made valiant attempts at discipline and I would have had to be a lip reader so quietly spoken was he. Mum was a different matter. That banshee was known to try and chase me round the outside of the house with the cord of the electric frying pan. She only caught me once but that was enough to know who was the boss at our place.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:48 am
KJ:
Holly - well, if you insist on giving A WOMAN the shits, what do you expect…..?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
My DEAR dad was positively scary and was a master in Self Distancing Disciplinary Techniques. Until I read your piece I had no idea how he manipulated the solving of behaviour problems. This is how it went. Say I’d been picking on his best mate’s pain of a kid, Jack. Dad hears of it, calls me out to the shed. He speaks calmly, tells me how disappointed he is in me and then ASKS ME WHAT I THINK SHOULD HAPPEN. Bloody hell! SDDT or what? He didn’t send me to a Marist Brothers College for nothing! I knew all about their forms of retribution. I choose a mild one, 200 lines and clean out the chapel (or the shed) for a month. Dad would say ARE YOU SURE THAT’S ENOUGH? I’d then say “It was very bad of me to bully little Jack. How about 6 with the strap?” That will do it, he would say and then proceed to administer with more strength and accuracy than Brother Mark. Ouch. Ouch. OUCH.OUCH! OUCH! BLOODY OUCH!
November 12th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Whipping Boy - as a colonial, you are perfect to enter into the highest circles of British society. So common is this fetish that at Bletchley Park we had a whole section code-named B-U-T-T-O-C-K-S.
A former Lord Justice was section leader and at one end was all Brit dignity, silver hair and beard and steely blue eyes, and the other end was beaten turquoise, purple, red and green through his addiction to the Whip. Hair shirts were coming in just as The Ginger Man left Trinity.
As for the Grateful Dead and their advice, I stay right away from this topic due to a distressing experience with an Earthy Woman of Amazingly Low Body Temperature and No Coversation Whatsoever in Haiti.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Give me Hec’s techniques any day. My papa, when informed by mama of his kids playing up, would take himself off to the pub for hours, come home all sentimental and melancholy and proceed to listen to Mario Lanza on the record player. We knew all the words of “The Drinking Song” and “Ave Maria” before we started Kindergarten.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Hello there Hec fan……to be honest Hec did have your papa’s technique in his disciplinary skills set, employing it AFTER he’d wacked Code Reds on exceptional shit fights. I knew the words to Kiss Me Goodnight Sergeant Major even before I left the bassinette…
November 13th, 2008 at 10:59 am
KJ……I must stress again….. LEAVE the Grateful Dead at rest.
This has been embedded in The Ginger Man’s psyche since his attendance at the Zombie Absinthe & Spirituality Festival and his dalliance with the Woman of Extremely Low Body Temperature.
This news item reinforces The Ginger Man’s perception:
Husband’s coffin kills wife on way to cemetery
Police say a woman has died on the way to a cemetery when a traffic accident hurled her husband’s coffin against the back of her neck.
Police said 67-year old Marciana Silva Barcelos was in the front passenger seat of the hearse when the accident occurred in the Brazilian southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.
Barcelos died instantly.
Her 76-year-old husband Josi Silveira Coimbra died Sunday of a heart attack while dancing at a party.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Greek and loving it…..as soon as I saw The Ginger Man’s last post re the very unlucky Coimbra family, I thought of you. Recently, you sought urgent advice because your husband had turned into a SELFISH, dangerous dancer, straining marital relations. Tell him about Marciana and Josi and, trust me, things will be back to normal.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:25 am
The Ginger Man’s phobia expressed in his typical snide upper-class style is nothing more than censorship of our dear departed.
Of what relevance to this discussion is his sordid love affair with one of the Living Dead in Haiti?
Further, the Haitian woman had a Point of View, which should not be silenced by some poisoned alpha male with a ruined liver and a rotten mind.
As the eldest daughter of one of Australia’s leading funeral directors I am looking forward to the Dead Shall Speak Week in the first week of December 2008.
Tape recordings and videos of the departed, their manuscripts and speeches, books and Radio National interviews with Kerrie Jean and the deceased will be on display.
Once this movement takes off it will mean the end to mealy-mouthed funeral homilies and panegyrics and the Dead Shall Speak.
I put it directly to The Ginger Man: What message would you leave to be broadcast to the public from the Other Side?
For exampe, I do not rely on Quit-X patches. I just turn on the video of Yul Bryner saying : Whatever you do, don’t smoke.
So Mr Ginger Man, what’s your message, particularly as you have had an encounter with the Woman Who Took You Halfway There ?
KJ: Well done you Morticia! I bet The Ginger Man has been taking women HALFWAY there for many, many years!
November 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am
If you insist, Morticia, it would be:
Whatever you do, don’t drink absinthe.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:57 am
After reflection I have changed my perceptions.
The Dead Shall Speak is a good idea.
I note that the ABC has a program on the Mystery of the Mary Celeste.
If only the producers had contacted The Ginger Man for the solution to the mystery.
In December 1872 the Mary Celeste was found drifting in mid-Atlantic its crew and passengers vanished.
The answer is to look at its cargo.
ABSINTHE !
The ABC program needs a tailend voicer from the departed voyagers calling from Davy Jones Locker:
‘Whatever you do, don’t drink Absinthe!’
November 13th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Dear KJ,
Wonder what The Ginger Man employs as his main disciplinary technique in his private domain???
November 13th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Good to hear from you again country gal - the harvest must be over…..did you have a wild celebration in your barn with fiddlers, stuffed pigs, comely girls and strong young men?
Re your ponderings, I have NO wish to have any ideas at all EXCEPT to surmise that The Ginger Man almost certainly lives in a HALFWAY house!
November 13th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
KJ,
The open road is home to The Ginger Man which is why I have mentioned my admiration for the always broke Jesus.
That is not to say that Friends have not come to the rescue, and a pillow at Kirribilli House has on occasion comforted The GM.
There is nothing HalfWay about The GM.
For example, I have been invited by one of these Friends to come up with a rescue plan for the finances of the Colony of New South Wales.
There are many options, : fashion parades - did you know that the ‘fascinator’ is on the way back? and barbecues, but these are small beer to what I have in mind.
And no, the plan does not include an absinthe distillery for NSW.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
KJ - Look here, The Ginger Man, I’ve just had a very, very quiet chat with Hec about you and A MAN didn’t mince his words. A Man had met - on many dismal occasions - the likes of The Ginger Man: Big noters, lairs, mugs, all talk no action……
He got very worked up - and then he said: KJ, A Man will tell you something I’ve never told anyone before……when I was a self-taught navigator in the RAAF, my pilot was a The Ginger Man sort of bloke. On one mission, I worked out our location and he said: You’re wrong Hec and I went to Melbourne Grammar so I should know. Hec tried to reason with him. It was of no use. He just kept yelling: Melbourne Grammar, Melbourne Grammer, Melbourne Grammar! Shortly after, a good bloke from the back of the Anson bomber shouted: Shit! We’ve just lobbed a big one on Darwin!
Stay away from The Ginger Man, Hec said before he (as usual) atomised - he is a dangerous bastard…..
November 13th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
KJ, I hope that you do not resent my professional advice. I feel compelled,however, to give you a gentle warning about your obsession with The Ginger Man. There is in your posting more than a touch of chick lit, as it is known in the vernacular, when you refer to him as a ‘dangerous bastard.’
Bodice-rippers are filled with stories of young women (particularly those from rural backgrounds as in your case) being drawn inexorably towards ‘bastards’ because of feminine dualism, maternal urgings concerning the ‘bad boy’ and the desire to cure him. Hatred is not the opposite of love, it is related. The opposite is indifference.
Your cries of ‘I hate him, I hate him, I hate him’ or ‘he’s a dangerous bastard’ may betray inner feelings that you have not faced. Do you find yourself putting down your sewing and pounding a velvet cushion with your tiny fists?
We do not know The Ginger Man’s first name.
If his first name was Fitzwilliam we would not be surprised.
Nor would we be astonished if this Irish Protestant Ascendancy, Trinity College man’s second name was Darcy.
If you recall in the novel that is the Bible of Chicklit, Darcy’s seemingly arrogant character masks a sincerely generous and upright nature,
On the other hand, you may be correct in assuming that The Ginger Man is a thorough cad.
Whatever the case, KJ, you must give up this obsession.
November 13th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Thank you for your comments Consultant Psychologist, but I have no ambition to be known as a geriatric chick magnet even if that were true.
KJ may not know it, but I enrolled in her Kerrie Jean Ross Correspondence School of Journalism and graduated, and I have just been appointed Asian Pacific editor for the Alternative New York Times, which has just distributed one million copies in its home city, announcing the end of the Iraq War and containing a confession by Condoleeza Rice admitting that weapons of mass destruction never existed.
You may view the newspaper online at
http://www.news.com.au/technology/s…0,25642,24645327-5014239,00.html
November 14th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Dear country gal, Whenever The Ginger Man gets an attack of remorse, feels sado macho tendencies, there is no need for the application of a whip to the buttocks or recourse to Madame Lash. Deliverance or infliction of pain physically is not the go.
All that is necessary is a quick visit to this website, and an immediate release is discovered.
This is a lash and absinthe free zone.