House Apes
by Mike Litrel, M.D.

house consisting of the Two Part Parenting Technique - the first part being, tell the child to "get the stick," and the second part, take the stick and beat the child's bottom.

The only thing I remember from these parenting cassettes is that the bathroom is the most boring room in the house. When your child is behaving badly, the bathroom is the perfect place for a "time out." I love the concept of time out. It's so civilized. Lock the child somewhere out of the way so you can't get to him to beat his fanny.

This time out precipitated an outbreak of Tyler kicking the walls of the bathroom. Ann was still upstairs trying to regain her sanity. I opened the bathroom door like an enraged Wild Man. I shouted at Tyler like my father used to shout at me. Tyler's eyes widened. I demanded he follow me into the basement. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was "in for it."

Oscar Wilde says it best: "Never hit a child - except in anger." But I had no intention of hitting Tyler. It didn't do me any good when I was ten. To be honest, it just made me wonder if my Mom and Dad truly loved me. But I had every intention of scaring the house ape out of him.

"No Dad, please Dad, I'm sorry Dad," Tyler pleaded. He was genuinely frightened. Witnessing his fear brought back long forgotten memories of when I was ten. I used to be scared, too.

I kept the bluff going. "It's too late for that - now you are going to get it!" Looking in Tyler's eyes, I could see the wheels turning as he wondered what "it" was. Then I propelled him to the treadmill, cranked the incline to the steepest, and told him in no uncertain terms that he would run at any pace he chose for a full thirty minutes.

School was tough for me, too. They didn't have the diagnosis ADHD back then, or all the drugs that hide its symptoms. But I hated school, just like Tyler. All that schoolwork when you just wanted to be outside with your friends having fun. Fun - it's what life is about.

Thirty minutes later, Tyler was covered with sweat but smiling. "Thanks Dad, I feel so good Dad. I feel like I could touch the ceiling!" He jumped up high and got some sweaty house ape fingerprints on the doorjamb. I thought about saying something, but then I realized something so obvious it hurt. I'd rather have a dirty house, shared with my two hopeless house apes, than a spotless house with no house apes at all.

That evening Tyler and I were sitting on the porch enjoying each other's company. I made fun of myself, somewhat apologetically, and how I lost my temper. Tyler laughed at the memory. Then he became very serious as he framed a reassuring reply.

"Don't worry Dad - I sort of made an idiot of myself, too."

I've always recognized that a couple of house apes live in my house. But on second thought, maybe it's three.

Dr. Litrel is a surgeon in private practice with Cherokee Women's Health Specialists in Woodstock and Canton. He is a Clinical Professor at Emory Medical School and the Medical College of Georgia. Dr. Litrel lives in Towne Lake with his wife Ann and their two sons, Tyler and Joseph. (mikelitrel@attbi.com)

When I was a boy, my mother called my twin brother and me her "house apes." I don't think she meant it as a term of endearment. I didn't find it funny at the time, and now I find it even less so.

That's because I have a couple of house apes living with me.

House apes touch everything they are not supposed to. It's in their instincts. Where house apes reside, you find tell tale signs everywhere: crumbs beneath the table, chocolate smears on the couch, finger prints all over the house. They have small hands. Small, dirty hands.

My oldest house ape, Tyler - now ten - uses my computer for his schoolwork. The keys stick to my fingers. Lately, Tyler has not been enjoying school. His teachers have noticed. And so have I. Ann met with his concerned teachers and discussed possible reasons for his behavior. ADHD? Poor attitude? Laziness?

Yes, yes, and yes. But these are all part of the larger syndrome of being a house ape. This weekend, Tyler threw an orange on the floor during a typical house ape temper tantrum. Then he laid face down on the hardwood floor and pounded his hands and feet - just like you see in the old cartoons. He was upset about a report that was due. The report was about "Our Family History."

I suspect if I were being forced to write about this particular topic I'd throw a temper tantrum, too.

Ann is the mature one in our marriage, and for that I am very grateful. She told me to leave Tyler alone, that she was managing him with "good communication and acknowledgment." Now, it's true that Ann knows quite a bit about communication and all, but she doesn't know one thing about how to handle house apes. So as soon as she went upstairs - to pray, meditate, or hide, I don't know which - I grabbed Tyler by the ear and threw him in the bathroom.

Why the bathroom? Well, it's something I learned on some parenting tapes we listened to during Ann's first pregnancy. My father bought us the cassettes as a baby shower present, in a gesture of extreme irony. His own parenting skills were somewhat limited, discipline in our