Consistency is key.
As long as you set rules and hold them, and punish the kids for breaking them without exception, all is fine- kids really do want to have structure. It's when you start waffling on punishments and lifting the punishment early that they start figuring out how to undermine you and twist you around.

I tried to explain that to Nurse Ratched many times, but she's rather weak-willed. So they all walked all over her throughout their teenage years.

As for me- still unemployed, but keeping busy with projects. The latest has been to dismantle a load of old pianos and salvage the wood they were built from. On the up side, though, I have been offered gallery space for $10/month for stained glass. Woo!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 15 Sep 2009, 15:46, 1 reply)

Good news on the glass
Saw a piece you posted a while back and was suitably impressed.

If you're not careful, an artist will burst out of that engineer's stomache of yours - Alien-like.

Damned right about consistency and boundaries; can't figure out why all parents aren't given a handbook when their kids are born. Could save a whole lot of bother in the world.

Maybe we should bring out the book...

Good luck with the job-hunting & glass.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Tue 15 Sep 2009, 16:10, closed)

As it happens
I've just spent two hours getting a start on another piece. Apparently the thing that I do that everyone seems to like is that I leave a fair bit of open space in my pieces and use slabs of translucent stone as well as glass. I've just built a frame to do this to.

I'm already more artist than engineer at this point. Even were I to get a job this very afternoon I'd still be doing the glass and metal work.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 15 Sep 2009, 17:48, closed)