Discipline and the heat wave

I would have to agree with Sara!  Circumstances do not change convictions, and learning to be pleasant in less than pleasant circmstances is a great skill for real life.

You do realize that there are those of us who live in this heat – and worse – every summer in the south with no air conditioning, right?  And we do continue to live a normal life, including discipline. You might think we all LOVE the heat, or we are USED to the heat, and it does not bother us.  Au contraire!!  I lived in the north until I was 10, and had air conditioning in the south until I left my parent’s home.  Learning to be pleasant in the un-airconditioned heat with my husband and children, often while pregnant (only missed two summers out of 13 pregnancies), has been a life-long challenge.  I would move to Alaska in a heartbeat – if my family would go:-)

I might suggest one way to cool off a bit with a box fan is to freeze water in a 2-liter bottle (readily available from friends and family if you do not consume sodas as we do not) and place it right in front of the box fan.  I save this for the hot part of the afternoon. A kiddie pool in the shade is also cool and refreshing!

Oh, Sue!  LOL  Yes, I know exactly what you mean.  We’re a little west of you and it’s been like this since last Thursday with no real relief in sight until maybe Saturday or Sunday.  We are blessed to have air conditioning now but we’ve had our share of crankies from being stuck inside.  I do think you should discipline like normal but with an edge of grace–because you DO understand where it’s coming from.  I always try to plan a few “treats” when we can–make homemade popsicles together, turn on the hose/sprinklers for a bit, allow an extra movie on a really stifling afternoon, etc.  It does make the time go faster–sometimes it’s easy to forget how slowly time moves for children on days like this.  DO consider having a talk with them about behavior–sometimes if you just point out why they are cranky it can make it easier for them to notice.  Self-awareness takes time to develop.  Remind them they can’t be atrocious every time they are uncomfortable and you all have to find ways to help each other through it.

Now, NoeMom, you have to give us  Northerners some allowances in summer.  We get to gripe when it’s 100 just like you all get to have panic attacks when it snows an inch!  LOL!  Actually for those of us in the Mississippi Valley, summers are often like this–I think that river sucks up all your  heat and sends it our way!  LOL

Living in a nonair-conditioned home would make me cranky, too. We went through that  here in Ga. without A/C a couple of years ago in July and it made us all tired ornery; my husband’s seizures even increased. My son and I get headaches in the heat, too; so I completley understand, though a southerners tolernace is higher than ya’ll’s (flipped in Winter).

That being said, living without A/C didn’t become quasi-normal for the general public until the mid-seventies. My husband grew up in Miami w/o it until 1976; my grandmother never had it and we’d visit her mid-summer; my parents never had it, so on and so forth. Remember watching Andy Griffith and in the evening time they all on the front porch? That’s because it was too blasted hot in the house! However, I’m sure they didn’t live in a state of almost constant crankiness.

So, yes, I would discipline slightly, but with grace. We can be understanding but not excusing; teaching the character issue of making the best of an uncomfortable situation; not being a complainer, etc., ect. Esp. the arguing; whether ya’ll go to someone’s home is your decision anyway, not theirs. Getting out of the house may break the monotony of the same-ol-same-ol and recharge everyone. I say go! You need it, too.

Have them all apologize to each other and send everyone to their rooms until its time to leave!Or engage them in some sort of work to keep their mouths and brains occupied until time to go. Send them outside to run in the water sprinklers; have them sit in front of the box fan and have a sibling spray from behind the fan with a spray bottle-then they can work together. Make sure everyone’s getting hydrated. Whatever you seem worthwhile.

I sympathize…hopefully it will break soon. We had heat indexes of 105 last week.

Rachel

ps are you close to Mentor? My SIL lives there.

Here in IN its been horribly hot too. Heat indexes above 100, yuck. We are AC free too, though we have two very small window AC units – one in the living room and one in the boys bedroom. Plus the basement is relatively cool. So it could be worse. Yesterday I thought my boys needed to get out from the house – I didn’t consider the heat affecting them – but I dropped them at their dear aunty’s who has a pool and they were happy, happy campers all afternoon and evening. So the friend with the pool is the best idea, imo!!! 🙂  good luck!

Sue, personally I prefer a damp sheet in front of the fans/doors/windows.  That DOES make a difference.  I usually dampen a sheet and put it over the back of a chair right in front of the fan, and tack up damp sheets over the doors and windows on the side the wind is blowing.  This worked REALLY well, where I grew up in Kansas since it was ALWAYS windy, works here sometimes and sometimes doesn’t. 

Once when I was extremely pregnant (I have really, really big babies!) we were moving our mobile home and had to turn our electricity off, but we couldn’t afford a motel so we had to live in our home until the truck came to pick it up, for two days with no power.  Then, of course, we had a heat wave.  LOL  We kept a big cooler full of ice and those popsicles ln the little plastic tubes.  My dh when I got too miserable would pull out several sheets of popsicles and LAY them all over me, big belly and all.  Then he’d take the old ones and put them back in the cooler.  He got me fresh ice twice a day and we kept recycling and refreezing the popsicles.  It was pretty funny.  He took a pic once, but I’m pretty sure I destroyed all the copies and negatives!