<p>Good one, Dadguy.</p>
<p>Further evidence of OCD? I banned TV from our bedroom when DH and I were still in the bloom of young love (if it can be young love when you meet post-age-30 
). Thought it was bad for the romance factor. Never have let it back into the bedroom. </p>
<p>Evidence of non-OCD: I love love love it when we’re in a hotel and there’s a TV in the room. Sleep-timer buttons are awesome :D.</p>
<p>Sbmom: I really did try to ban video games. And then the kids started undercover buying and selling them, and they were 9 +10! I have relented.</p>
<p>It’s so nice to post this thread here and not be berated and called a control freak.(That would happen over there in the kid’s cafe!)</p>
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<p>They used to be plastic, but now they are wood or bamboo. </p>
<p>(Check out woodenswords.com.) :)</p>
<p>
Yeah, but…</p>
<p>We were accused of having OCD!!! :eek:
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s so obsessive to be concerned about the hole in the family room sheetrock, the broken <em>palladian</em> window over the front door in the foyer, and the golf club gouge in <em>my</em> bedroom ceiling*. This house was brand spanking new – paint barely dry – when we moved in here 13 years ago.</p>
<p>*I came home one day to find that a bit of my ceiling was … glossy. Turns out S1 had taken a chunk out of the ceiling sheetrock … and then touched it up with the first white paint he found. Which was woodwork white gloss, not ceiling white matte. It’s still glossy. Haven’t had the time to touch it up. I see it every single day!</p>
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</em><em>ROFLMAO</em>* I agree with you…not obsessive at ALL! :)</p>
<p>Banned: Tag football, belching contests. Jumping down the stairs (we have a split level; the ceiling going downstairs is not terribly high, and both my kids have cracked their heads on it. Repeated head-bangings have not managed to self-correct this behavior, strangely enough, so I had to explicitly ban it.)</p>
<p>Allowed: We sing at the dinner table regularly. Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, etc. Books and newspapers are also OK, but not homework. Vigorous political debate always welcomed.</p>
<p>CountingDown: Just a guess-- you have boys?</p>
<p>I tried to ban burping at the table, but my husband was worst than the kids! And the joke in our house is that farts are not funny; I have been teased about this after I punished my son for the non stop extra sound effects. As you can tell, my husband is just like Peter Pan, he never grew up!</p>
<p>What a hilarious thread! We at one time had to ban the kids (newly blended stepfamily) from touching the cat b/c it caused too much fighting. (It was the boys’ cat and they didn’t want their new stepsister touching her.)</p>
<p>My father got very sick of us playing that old ditty “Heart and Soul” on our piano when the three of us girls were taking piano lessons. He decreed that we could only play it once a day each when he was home. He also used to ban us from borrowing clothes and accessories from each other when that led to too many arguments.</p>
<p>SBMom,
Yes, two boys, 15 months apart. When we got a dog, I insisted on a female. DS2 can belch the alphabet – think he can list that as an EC?! ;)</p>
<p>I had to ban my youngest from juggling his devil sticks in the house, because my H collects Biblical Archaeology. It’s not a “sinful” thing, I just don’t want him to break the stuff. These dusty pots survived 3,000 years, fires and wars…but will they survive my youngest’s journey through high school? Only time will tell…</p>
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<p>My parents banned me from closing my bedroom door for a week as punishment. I absolutely hated it. I actually took to sitting in the closet reading a book with a flashlight because I couldn’t take the fact that no matter where they were they could just stick their head in the hallway and STARE at me. I hate being watched. <em>shudder</em> </p>
<p>My parents wouldn’t allow me to say “shut up” to them ever, not even in a joking sense. I also wasn’t allowed to curse, although they were, and for a while my mother took to making me pay her $5 every time there was a single dirty dish in the kitchen sink when she came home, or if there was one there in the morning during the week that I had left from the previous night. Said she hated coming home to dirty dishes or waking up to dirty dishes. I hate waking up to dirty dishes to wash too but I was required to wash the family’s breakfast dishes when I was home during the summer anyway, and I didn’t get to charge them $5 for it. But of course parents don’t need actual reasons for things, because they have the “because I said so” card.</p>
<p>What was banned when I lived at home:</p>
<p>NERF gun wars in the long (30+ foot) hallway–knocked down too many pictures
Building “forts” at the end of the hallway out of materials found in the bedrooms for first NERF wars and then water gun wars
Water Gun wars inside–it’s Iowa, it was the middle of Winter Break, and we were home alone, okay?
Watching TV in parents room when they weren’t home, ESPECIALLY if our TV in our own room was on suspension for messy rooms–but we got around this by returning the TV to the original channel so they never knew; one time my brother forgot and got in trouble. They knew it was him because it was on Nickelodeon and he always watched that while I watched ESPN.
Feet (even just socks) on the coffee table in front of the couch
Stapling posters to the wall (had to use tape)
Locking another sibling out–I had a plastic foot locker that fit perfectly behind my door against the wall so when someone would try to come in, the door would hit the locker and stop. I was always skinny enough to squeeze through the gap that was too small for big brothers
Locking people IN their rooms via string and another door
“Are we there yet”, “He’s touching me”, “He looked at me funny”–enough said
Shutting the suicide doors on the pick-up even though you knew someone else had to get out still
Bouncing basketballs
Kicking the soccer ball against the garage
Laying in bed and throwing baseball straight up to catch it inches above face–resulted in atleast four black eyes to me, that I remember anyway
Both of my brothers wrestled competitively from kindergarten through high school–no practice in the living room. Restricted wrestling to the mat in the basement.
No moving the wrestling mat from the basement to the living room so they could practice while watching TV (although during the summer when parents were at work, this was done frequently)</p>
<p>I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of</p>
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<em>sniffle</em> This brings back <em>SO</em> many memories!!! My kids had Nerf wars to end all Nerf wars…we had an amazing arsenal! Good times! :D</p>
<p>Oh don’t worry, we still have all the guns and ammo, and just about everything else Nerf that’s out there–balls, bats, you name it. </p>
<p>Over winter break when all of us kids came home from our various schools, mayhem ensued. Forts are more extravagant now that we’re older, close-range hits are legal because I’m no longer afraid of being shot by someone 8 years older than me (he was in military for 6 years, hence the back in school thing for him), and our parents actually watch! Dad actually keeps “score”, not really sure what his system is. I think the only difference is we live in a new house so we play in an open basement and not a hallway.</p>
<p>^^My kids made super elaborate forts–one set of kids manned the upstairs balcony overlooking the living room and the other was downstairs in the Little Tikes castle <em>ROFL</em>. My hubster and my brother always played along with the kids. Any babies (3 and under) were the “nuclear deterrents” (as they caused more harm than good) and the ammo runners as they were off limits for target practice! (So said mama!) ;)</p>
<p>Banned TV for the first ten years of their childhoods.</p>
<p>Banned video games and players–still in effect.</p>
<p>(None of this worked. They were both computer game hounds for six or seven years).</p>
<p>Periodically banned the mention of Bill Gates at the dinner table. Sorry, I had to do it. He was a dreadful conversation topic but they were fascinated.</p>
<p>Banned sleepovers between the ages of 13 and 16. Banned sleepovers during the school year unless it was a three day weekend.</p>
<p>Banned sleepovers of girlfriends. Banned the request of under-20 gf’s sleeping over; ie “Don’t ask me the answer is “No.” Have some fun in the back of your car, why don’t cha?”</p>
<p>Banned porn of any sort on any computer. </p>
<p>Banned texting at table–minor success with that.</p>
<p>Banned leaving the table before others are done.</p>
<p>Kinda fussy about the table manners. Sue me.</p>
<p>Insist on family dinners even when it is explained to me that holiday breaks include a holiday from family dinners. Yeah. Good one.</p>
<p>Wrestling is allowed. Soccer and basketball allowed–we used to live in a house with all terrazzo floors. They could rollerblade through the house. Have initiated some water pistol fights.</p>
<p>I tried to ban my 6 and 7 yr old kids from ever touching each other again. I ended up paying a couple extra thousand dollars for captains seats in my van to keep the little darlings separated.</p>
<p>LOL! I used to have to put luggage or some large object between my girls in the car to stop the fighting! (They were epic fighters. When they were about 8 and 3, they had a huge fight over custody of an IMAGINARY panda bear they kept on their shoulders! For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t just imagine a second panda.) I’ve had to ban singing after about 7–8pm, because my husband wakes early for work and so goes to sleep early. that one kills me, because I had a ban on singing at the dinner table when I was little; the siblings and I were big on the singing. I always thought that that rule was mean spirited. My 17-year old D bought a keyboard to play after hours because the regular piano made too much noise, and the keyboard has headphones. She also does Step/drill–that African american fraternity-inspired stomping/clapping. It’s absolutely awesome to watch, but loud, so that’s also banned after 7–8pm. Poor kid. I shut her down early. No wonder she mixes videos all night! My strictest rule is absolutely no drinking or drugs, ever. I do not waver on this one. I have testing kits at home in reserve to discourage it. (I know I’m a little overboard, but I lost a brother to it at 17 years old) My D’s friends call me a pilgrim for it, lol! In my view, though, my job is to get my kids through the teens to adulthood alive, not as a pal to their friends.</p>