He wasn’t a bad kid—just strong-willed, easily distracted, and stubborn to a fault. We tried every parenting approach in the book: positive reinforcement, time-outs, and even the occasional stern punishment. Nothing worked. If anything, our constant corrections only seemed to make him dig in his heels further.
Then, one weekend changed everything.
My mother-in-law, Susan, had always been eager to spend more time with Ethan.
She adored him, though she often hinted—sometimes not so subtly—that we were too lenient with him. “He just needs a firm hand,” she’d say with a knowing smile. So, when she invited Ethan to spend the weekend at her house, we thought, why not? It would give us a break, and maybe he’d enjoy a change of pace.
When Sunday evening rolled around and we picked him up, I immediately noticed something was different. Instead of running ahead and throwing his backpack onto the floor as he usually did, Ethan walked calmly to the car. He buckled his seatbelt without being asked.
At home, the changes were even more striking. He offered to set the table for dinner. He cleared his plate and washed it. Later, when I walked into the living room, he was vacuuming—without being told!
I looked at my husband, bewildered. “Did we pick up the wrong kid?” I joked. But in truth, something about his sudden transformation unsettled me. A single weekend couldn’t change a child that much. Could it?
