On the way home from the gym yesterday, the Tyrant yelled from the back of the van, “Mom! Open it!”
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw she was holding a bag of potato chips. “Mommy’s driving, sweetie,” I said. “I’ll open it when---” THWACK. The bag of chips beaned me in the side of my head.
“Well, here they are,” I said.
So you’re on the edge of your seat reading this, I know. Did I slam on the brakes? Pull over and scream until my throat was sore? Eat the chips myself?
No. First I again took note of my 2-year-old’s remarkable aim. Then I opened the chips and tossed them back to her.
She ate one. “I don’t yike these,” she said. She emptied the bag into the cupholder and took a cereal bar out of her backpack. “Open it!”
“Honey, I’m not going to open any---” THWACK. That aim is something, I tell you.
I opened it and tossed it back to her. “I don’t yike it!” She threw it on the floor. Those of you familiar with my chronic roach problems are probably having an “aha” moment right now.
For a long time the Pterodactyl has been terrorizing the family. His screech contains some sort of sonar that penetrates the brain and he’s irritatingly adept at inventing behavior designed to drive me wild -- emptying a basket of clean folded laundry, scribbling on his sister’s favorite artwork, throwing a pencil at me because I didn’t draw an airplane the way he envisioned it.
But he’ll be five in a couple of months, and he’s becoming ever-so-slightly rational. Last night, after I took away his Blankie and Blue Puppy and Fuzzy Pillow because he called me a mean mom, he calmed down enough to get his treasures back and then asked me sweetly to snuggle with him. “Do you still think I’m a mean mom?” I asked. He pulled my face close to his. “Yes,” he whispered. But I didn’t care because at least he was going to sleep.
It’s the Tyrant who has everybody on the run now. We're all bearing scars from her. The boy has a bloody scratch under his eye. My elbow is bruised. She hits. She throws. She bangs. She scratches. She yells. She tells me to go to Time Out about 12 times a day. She’s crazy cute, and she loves to look at me, raise her eyebrows up and down, nod and smile, like she’s letting me in on her secret. But I don’t know her secret. I just think she’s nuts.
My friend Sahmmy (www.sahmmy.com) was appalled at the driving/potato chips story. “Uh-uh. No you didn’t. You pulled the car over, right? And threw the chips away?”
Sahmmy reasons that if I don’t nip this stuff now, the Tyrant will evolve into full-fledged delinquency by kindergarten. “What are you going to do when she’s 13? If she’s even around when she’s 13,” Sahmmy said. I allowed myself for a brief moment to think of an adolescent Tyrant living under a bridge with an eyebrow ring and a tattoo of a cobra around her leg. Ew.
Husband and I are struggling with the discipline thing right now. Discipline is hard work. I don’t like discipline. I much prefer yelling, evil eye stares and stomping my feet. I like my children to be slightly afraid of me so that they can’t tell that I’m actually afraid of them.
I’m not opposed to pops on the bottom. That’s what we call them, because I think it sounds better than hitting my child on the butt. But I don’t think they work, mainly because they’re not painful enough, and I’m not talking about physical pain because I absolutely would never do anything that caused a child more than a second of slight physical discomfort. No, I’m talking regret here. And think about it. Faced with a choice between, say, getting a flu shot and actually getting the flu, but still having to take care of everyone around you as they themselves get the flu and never actually getting to recover yourself except during the long uncomfortable nights when you’re shivering from the fever, wouldn’t you go for the easy short-lived pain of the injection? I’m just talking hypothetically here.
Anyway, a child psychologist recommended a book that essentially lauds “Time-Outs” as the cure for all bad behavior. It’s a decent-sized paperback, and serves as an excellent nightside coaster. The actual Time-Out philosophy has not worked for several reasons, the main one being that the Tyrant will not stay in Time-Out unless we sit on her, and even then we have to sit on her hands, too, or she’ll leave bloody scratches on our backs. She’s very strong.
Our latest tactic has been to put a hook-and-eye lock on her door so we can lock her in her room for Time-Out. I had been holding the door shut, but I started getting calluses on my hands and they hurt, so I asked Husband to install the hook-and-eyes. So far it’s working, though not necessarily as a deterrent. It’s mostly working as a chance for me to catch my breath, regroup, and say, “my children are adorable. my children are adorable. my children are adorable,” 20 times in a row.
If you don’t, upon spending significant amounts of time with young children, begin to have a better insight into child abuse, you need to have your empathy box refilled. I’m not talking about systemic, chronic abuse. I’m talking about the young woman who snaps in the grocery store parking lot because her 4-year-old unscrewed his sippy cup and dumped orange juice on the baby’s face. And the woman was up all night with the baby and hasn’t eaten anything but Cheez-Its all day. How hard is it for that woman to keep her hands to herself in that brief, maddening moment?
I'm not talking about the zany, hilarious stuff. As I'm writing this, for example, the Tyrant is lining up Dixie cups on the window sill and putting a dollop of bubblegum-flavored toothpaste in each one. I'm okay with that. I'm referring to the bad stuff. The hitting, the defiance, the absolute refusal to do something as simple as not spit chewed-up chicken nugget at the babysitter.
It’s hard. It’s very hard. I’m not Mother-of-the-Year, and I know there have been many times that I’ve handled the discipline thing wrong. But I thank my lucky stars every day that my kids came along after I’d been on this earth for nearly four decades, giving me time to ripen and mellow like that excellent Chardonnay I had the other night. Thank goodness I have the patience, or maturity, or age-induced anger management skills, whatever it is, to keep from harming my children.
It’s true that I want them to be afraid of me -- but not because I would ever harm them. As Sahmmy says, it’s good to keep them a little off-guard. I want them to fear me because I’m just a little nuts. Poor Tyrant. I guess that’s where she gets it.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw she was holding a bag of potato chips. “Mommy’s driving, sweetie,” I said. “I’ll open it when---” THWACK. The bag of chips beaned me in the side of my head.
“Well, here they are,” I said.
So you’re on the edge of your seat reading this, I know. Did I slam on the brakes? Pull over and scream until my throat was sore? Eat the chips myself?
No. First I again took note of my 2-year-old’s remarkable aim. Then I opened the chips and tossed them back to her.
She ate one. “I don’t yike these,” she said. She emptied the bag into the cupholder and took a cereal bar out of her backpack. “Open it!”
“Honey, I’m not going to open any---” THWACK. That aim is something, I tell you.
I opened it and tossed it back to her. “I don’t yike it!” She threw it on the floor. Those of you familiar with my chronic roach problems are probably having an “aha” moment right now.
For a long time the Pterodactyl has been terrorizing the family. His screech contains some sort of sonar that penetrates the brain and he’s irritatingly adept at inventing behavior designed to drive me wild -- emptying a basket of clean folded laundry, scribbling on his sister’s favorite artwork, throwing a pencil at me because I didn’t draw an airplane the way he envisioned it.
But he’ll be five in a couple of months, and he’s becoming ever-so-slightly rational. Last night, after I took away his Blankie and Blue Puppy and Fuzzy Pillow because he called me a mean mom, he calmed down enough to get his treasures back and then asked me sweetly to snuggle with him. “Do you still think I’m a mean mom?” I asked. He pulled my face close to his. “Yes,” he whispered. But I didn’t care because at least he was going to sleep.
It’s the Tyrant who has everybody on the run now. We're all bearing scars from her. The boy has a bloody scratch under his eye. My elbow is bruised. She hits. She throws. She bangs. She scratches. She yells. She tells me to go to Time Out about 12 times a day. She’s crazy cute, and she loves to look at me, raise her eyebrows up and down, nod and smile, like she’s letting me in on her secret. But I don’t know her secret. I just think she’s nuts.
My friend Sahmmy (www.sahmmy.com) was appalled at the driving/potato chips story. “Uh-uh. No you didn’t. You pulled the car over, right? And threw the chips away?”
Sahmmy reasons that if I don’t nip this stuff now, the Tyrant will evolve into full-fledged delinquency by kindergarten. “What are you going to do when she’s 13? If she’s even around when she’s 13,” Sahmmy said. I allowed myself for a brief moment to think of an adolescent Tyrant living under a bridge with an eyebrow ring and a tattoo of a cobra around her leg. Ew.
Husband and I are struggling with the discipline thing right now. Discipline is hard work. I don’t like discipline. I much prefer yelling, evil eye stares and stomping my feet. I like my children to be slightly afraid of me so that they can’t tell that I’m actually afraid of them.
I’m not opposed to pops on the bottom. That’s what we call them, because I think it sounds better than hitting my child on the butt. But I don’t think they work, mainly because they’re not painful enough, and I’m not talking about physical pain because I absolutely would never do anything that caused a child more than a second of slight physical discomfort. No, I’m talking regret here. And think about it. Faced with a choice between, say, getting a flu shot and actually getting the flu, but still having to take care of everyone around you as they themselves get the flu and never actually getting to recover yourself except during the long uncomfortable nights when you’re shivering from the fever, wouldn’t you go for the easy short-lived pain of the injection? I’m just talking hypothetically here.
Anyway, a child psychologist recommended a book that essentially lauds “Time-Outs” as the cure for all bad behavior. It’s a decent-sized paperback, and serves as an excellent nightside coaster. The actual Time-Out philosophy has not worked for several reasons, the main one being that the Tyrant will not stay in Time-Out unless we sit on her, and even then we have to sit on her hands, too, or she’ll leave bloody scratches on our backs. She’s very strong.
Our latest tactic has been to put a hook-and-eye lock on her door so we can lock her in her room for Time-Out. I had been holding the door shut, but I started getting calluses on my hands and they hurt, so I asked Husband to install the hook-and-eyes. So far it’s working, though not necessarily as a deterrent. It’s mostly working as a chance for me to catch my breath, regroup, and say, “my children are adorable. my children are adorable. my children are adorable,” 20 times in a row.
If you don’t, upon spending significant amounts of time with young children, begin to have a better insight into child abuse, you need to have your empathy box refilled. I’m not talking about systemic, chronic abuse. I’m talking about the young woman who snaps in the grocery store parking lot because her 4-year-old unscrewed his sippy cup and dumped orange juice on the baby’s face. And the woman was up all night with the baby and hasn’t eaten anything but Cheez-Its all day. How hard is it for that woman to keep her hands to herself in that brief, maddening moment?
I'm not talking about the zany, hilarious stuff. As I'm writing this, for example, the Tyrant is lining up Dixie cups on the window sill and putting a dollop of bubblegum-flavored toothpaste in each one. I'm okay with that. I'm referring to the bad stuff. The hitting, the defiance, the absolute refusal to do something as simple as not spit chewed-up chicken nugget at the babysitter.
It’s hard. It’s very hard. I’m not Mother-of-the-Year, and I know there have been many times that I’ve handled the discipline thing wrong. But I thank my lucky stars every day that my kids came along after I’d been on this earth for nearly four decades, giving me time to ripen and mellow like that excellent Chardonnay I had the other night. Thank goodness I have the patience, or maturity, or age-induced anger management skills, whatever it is, to keep from harming my children.
It’s true that I want them to be afraid of me -- but not because I would ever harm them. As Sahmmy says, it’s good to keep them a little off-guard. I want them to fear me because I’m just a little nuts. Poor Tyrant. I guess that’s where she gets it.
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teendoc
Martha Nichols
the stand-in
Jeris Donovan
SeattleK8
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Salon.com
Comments
The same goes with parenting advice. There's no one sure way of parenting that's going to work for all kids, in all situations. And if any book or parent tells me there is i tune them out. That goes double for those non-parents who seem to know all the answers, despite not having raised kids.
My kids (now 10 & 12) were both relatively easy babies and toddlers - and we STILL seriously considered putting locks on their doors! We've never had to spank them, but darned if they haven't pushed us to our limits.
Conversely, my brother and his wife adopted a boy (as a newborn) who was extremely impulsive and hard to control from birth. As a baby he'd hold his breath until he passed out (and according to their doctor, this isn't unheard of). They tried everything and the kid seems impervious to punishment.
But, slowly but surely, and through trial and error and hard work they've turned him into a decently behaved 9-year-old.
But again, there's no silver bullet, so good luck.
My sister had 8 kids in 12 years , and at one point in the process found that she could hardly do anything for a minute without being interrupted. And so she kept a wet washcloth handy and every kid learned that if they interrupted Mom the first thing that happened was that she washed their face!
Maybe something similar would work with you - throw food get face washed. Kick, bite, or scratch - get face washed! Tyranny of any type - facewash!
: )
What you may be finding, as my parents certainly found, is that what works with one kid may not work with another. Have fun with that.
I am not a parent yet, although I plan to be. I'd like to think I know how I'll handle these sorts of situations, but who knows whether it will turn out that way.
One thing a friend of mine said recently about kids and discipline is this: "You have to teach them that they can trust you. That means you have to be very careful what punishments you threaten them with, because you need to be able to actually carry it out."
She doesn't have kids either, but has been a teacher for many years. She said that what she would do on the first day of class (inner city school here) was inform the students that it was important they be on time, because she would be locking the classroom door at the beginning of every class and no one would be admitted after that. She kept that promise, and the vast majority of the students showed up on time every day.
More important, perhaps, is what my own mother said to me when I told her I wanted to be a mom: "As long as you're not afraid of making mistakes, it'll be fine."
Good luck with the Tyrant!
rated
I had a really difficult, willful , defiant child. Discipline was a challenge. I hated the smug advice for time-outs I got when she had to be held in place while she screamed in protest. I spanked, but always gave her the choice first, "would you like to go to stay your time out or would you like to get a spanking then stay in your time out?" I asked it calmly, making it a choice, not a threat, but making it clear that the time out was not a choice.
After the first time, I only had to spank around once a year. My feeling is that corporal punishment isn't a problem as long as you aren't angry when you do it, you're consistently enforcing a long-standing rule and the child had the opportunity to correct his or her behavior. The second important point is to not hurt the child. You want to produce temporary discomfort, not pain.
You need to set standards for what behavior is acceptable and what isn't. (I'd say hitting and throwing stuff at drivers is on the never acceptable list) Then you need to find a form of discipline that works for you and consistently enforce it.
You may have another set of rules that are not as consistently enforced, such as table manners. But, the stuff that matters has to be dealt with.
It's a battle.
Another thing to be aware of is ABC, Antecedents, Behavior, Consequences. If you're battling a problem, you should write this stuff down. You may discover that your kid always misbehaves in the hour before dinner. This might mean that she is hungry and has trouble with self control when she is hungry. You're solution might be to make sure she has an afternoon snack.
You may discover that she was whining for you to open that bag of chips for some time and you ignored her until she threw it at you. Bingo, she hits because you've been unintentionally rewarding hitting.
The ABC journal can help you identify what you need to do to get your kid to begin the process of becoming a civilized human being.
The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development
http://www.amazon.com/Parents-Mean-Well-Intentioned-Undermine-Development/dp/0618626174
I agree, I would have thrown the chips out the window. But, also completely understand how a young, sleep deprived parent might loose it in the parking lot. I'm grateful I was always able to not physically respond except for once. My young one spit in my face and I reflexivly slapped her. She glared at me, put her hands on her hips and said "I'm telling daddy". Being newly divorced and holding full custody, I was nervous that he would believe that I was abusing her! He didn't...having experienced similar behavior himself.
In terms of locking her in her room...I love your solution, but when I tried it she nearly kicked the door down. Now I live in a beautiful pre-war apartment with the paint falling off the moulding of her door from her kicking it...forturnately she never put her foot through it.
I'd like to tell you there is hope, and that they grow out of it. Their violent behavior abates, but in my case she's just gotten more crafty in her rebellion and has been through drugs at age 15 and now at seventeen having given up drugs "only drinks" and does the NYC Club scene. I've tried locking her out when she doesn't get home on time and she just stays at a friends.
But, at other times she's charming, smart and has a great sense of humor, and when not scowling or giving me the evil eye is rather beautiful. I tell myself that I wasn't that much different when I was young...teenage rebellion and all...that it's my parents wish that I have a child just like me, and that they are looking in from where ever they are now (both deceased) and laughing. I got her into therapy and she is working on this self-destructive behavior.
There is hope...always hope.
Many many of my intelligent, self confident and ambitious friends are soooo glad that we were/are not breeders.
This is just MORE proof that our lives are happier.
BTW-NONE of us are lonely.
There ARE actions which are however, the deserved spanking of a brat's ass is NOT.
On Monday, April 19, I logged onto the parenting web site that I visit almost daily. The survey question for the day was, "Do you spank your children?" As I clicked the "No" button I thought that surely, in this day and age, the overwhelming response would be identical to mine. I was dismayed when the current results popped up on the next screen: 67% of the respondents said "Yes."
I clicked on the chat feature and opened the page where the survey question was discussed. Most of the comments were from those of us who said "No," giving all the usual reasons why spanking isn't an appropriate form of discipline. Throwing in my two cents, I mentioned that the American Academy of Pediatrics had taken a stand against spanking. I said that no matter what you called it, it is still hitting your child. I said it teaches them that physical violence is a way to resolve conflicts.
The next day, the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO took place.
Now, I'm not saying that every child who is spanked will grow up to become a maladjusted, gun-toting homicidal teenager. Most of them won't. But the fact that 67% of an upwardly mobile, net-surfing, supposedly educated group believes that physical violence is an acceptable form of conflict resolution speaks volumes.
One has only to read Grimm's fairy tales to realize that humans have a long tradition of mistreating and disrespecting their offspring. We also have a history of slavery, racism, and spousal abuse which were once commonly accepted but are now against the law, and are unacceptable. Yet hitting your child is still not only legal, but socially acceptable.
Oh sure, there are laws that protect children. But I know from personal experience that for a DFACS agency to step in, the abuse has to be horrendous. I had a close friend in high school who got pregnant, and had a child far too young. She and her young husband lived in deplorable conditions, trying to make it on their own. Partly, I believe, because of their own upbringings, partly because of the overwhelming stress they were under, they gave in to their baser instincts of rage. I began to see signs of abuse and neglect in the baby. The occasional bruised legs and arms in a child too young to walk; diapers left unchanged all day; apathy and hopelessness in the parents. After agonizing for weeks, I finally placed a call to the local DFACS. I was told that I could not remain anonymous, that I would have to personally press charges against the parents -- my friends. Furthermore, the harried social worker explained, only about 5% of such cases ended up with any action being taken. She went on to say that even if action were taken, the baby could end up in a foster home under even worse conditions. Was I sure that I wanted to continue with my formal complaint? I wasn't. I hung up and sobbed for a while, then did what I could to help out. I babysat, giving them time off, and tried to be a positive presence in the baby's life. But my faith in the child welfare system was irreparably damaged.
Studies have shown that adults who were spanked as kids are much more likely to spank their own kids. Sociologists have theorized that children grow up to dissociate from the anger they feel toward their parents for the spankings: they cannot associate the person they love most in the world with the person hitting them. Thus they grow up with the anger either partially or totally suppressed, until they have their own children. Then it is likely that the act of "disciplining" their children through spanking is actually a channel for them to expel rage at their own parents. In other words, you're not really spanking your child, you're beating the crap out of your own parent(s) as pay-back.
So it would seem that our kids are completely at our mercy. For many of us, parenting wields the highest degree of power and control we will ever have. Forget the behavioral studies about how your parenting will influence your child's future. I'm talking about right now, this minute. Every parent in the world has the power to walk up to their child and MAKE them do something. Anything. From "Clean your room," a reasonable command, to "pick up every pebble in the driveway or I'll kill you." There is no other relationship in the world in which we will have opportunity to wield such power over another human being.
The day that I participated in the survey about spanking, I thought of how huge a double standard we have for our children. Let's say you are in a grocery store and you are pushing your cart behind a man and a woman who are bickering about what to buy. Suddenly the man reaches over and slaps the woman, on the bottom, the arm, maybe even the face. A hard slap that resounds along the aisle. You would (hopefully) be appalled, outraged. You think about intervening, but.... Well, you know. Maybe they'll just go home. You continue down the aisle and watch the man get angrier as the woman still refuses to comply with him. She seems unbelievably stubborn, you think. Why doesn't she just give in? What could they be arguing about? They stop walking, and now the man delivers a series of slaps and blows to her, shouting that she had better SHUT UP NOW. At this point you and other shoppers intervene. Perhaps a store employee calls the police. The man may be arrested for simple battery. The police officer may explain, as the man is lead away, "It is illegal to hit your wife, or anyone else."
Now let's take the same scenario, but with a child. Do I even need to repeat it? I think we all know that there will probably be no intervention, no calling the cops, no arrest. Just a sniffling, completely humiliated child, finally made to "cooperate" by the use of physical violence.
What does this disrespect and humiliation do to children? All you need to do is imagine how you would feel if you were in the grocery with your spouse, and he or she began hitting you and/or yelling at you. Or, for that matter, imagine one of your parents, right now, at whatever age they are, hitting you and yelling at you. That is exactly how a child feels. We are all human, and we all have the same feelings, whether we are 5 or 50. Remember the Golden Rule? Why do so many think this doesn't apply to children and parents? After all, the child-parent bond is said to be the most important relationship in one's life.
I'm sorry if you spank, or spanked, and my opinion hurts you. That is not my intent. Rather, I hope to raise consciousness just a little about the reality of spanking. Should you read this and decide that spanking is still best for your family, so be it. If you used to spank your kids and feel bad about it now, I hope this will provide some healing. You did the best you could at the time. You may have a chance one day to NOT spank your grand-kids.
Of course, children do need discipline. But the dictionary defines discipline as "instruction... To train or develop." What would have been an alternative to hitting the kid in the grocery store? What would be an alternative to hitting your spouse? I could name many, and they all have one thing in common: they are time-consuming and require thought. Personally, my rule was after five minutes of unacceptable public behavior, we left. Yes, this meant once leaving a cart half-full of groceries in the middle of the store. My daughter, then 2, was teething and grumpy. She hadn't napped. She fell asleep in the car on the way home. Later we went back to the grocery and she was happy as a lark. I can't imagine how slapping her around in the store could have done any good. Now, at nearly 8 years old, the tantrums are pretty much gone. When necessary, we take away TV privileges, or social plans. We make sure we stick to reasonable routines. More important, we reward her cooperation with increased responsibilities, staying up to watch a special TV program, maybe a trinket, a card, or a special outing. And lots and lots of hugs. We don't assume that she knows we love her and value her; we tell her, often. Are we perfect parents? Heck, no. We screw up, all the time. We get busy and impatient. We don't always listen closely. We forget to praise. We miss school conferences. We send the occasional mixed message (gasp). We teach her, by our example, that humans are never perfect.
But we never, ever, hit her. Except that one time. Most of us anti-spanking parents can confess to "just that one time." In my case my child, then 4, was having an awful tantrum, during which she spit in my face. Gut reaction: I reached out and slapped her bottom. Believe me, I will never be allowed to forget it. I have been embarrassed on at least one occasion, in the middle of heated anti-speaking statements, by my little darling piping up, "Uh-uh, mommy, remember that time you spanked me?" I may try to make light of it now, but I am not proud of that loss of control. Afterward, I felt horribly disconnected from my child, and from my spiritual source. I had to sit down with my sobbing child and explain that I had lost my temper, that even though her spitting at me was totally unacceptable, I was sorry I hit her. We talked about other things I could have done, and what an appropriate punishment for her spitting would be. I vowed never to do it again, and I haven't.
I don't know if the two boys who shot their classmates in Littleton were spanked as kids. I do know that they lived in a society where it is still acceptable to do so. Where violence, whether in fantasy video games, movies, or the newspaper, is a way of life. I believe we all know that they felt disrespected, dishonored, disconnected. Some of us may remember feeling the same way as teens. I often hear parents say of their teens, half-joking, "they really should be locked away somewhere until they are at least 18." Maybe there is a tendency to push our teens away emotionally, because they are pushing for independence. This is the paradox of the teen years: you need to push your parents away while at the same time you need them to be close, more than ever. I pray that when my daughter is a teen, I can be a willow. Let her push on me and bend me, but keep my roots firmly planted. I pray I will always bend toward her when she pushes, not away.
Your 2 year old is NOT the center of the universe. That's the most important lesson of toddlerhood--and probably the most difficult one learned. So consider what you're doing when you allow bad behavior to produce desired results. The better response is, "I can't hear you when you whine. I can't hear you when you scream. Speak in a respectful, pleasant voice so I can hear you" and "No, I won't open these chips. I do not do favors for people who are not nice to me. Hitting me with the chips while I am driving is both dangerous and not nice. I will not do things for you when you act ugly towards me." And these work all the way up through teenager-hood. I cannot hear them when they speak in other than a pleasant, respectful tone. Period. They quickly learn that to get what they want, they have to be pleasant and respectful to their mother. So no, don't spank, but do enforce your standards. Eventually, little Tyrant will come to understand.
And then, about Time Outs and parenting books. have you ever noticed that parenting books are not **about** real kids? They have some amalgamation of "normal" kids that are nothing like your kids and nothing like mine. My kids do things that no only did I never think of as a child, but that MOST kids never do. I've met kids who behave like those in that regular parenting books (a separate classification from the "problem child/what's wrong with my kid?" parenting books) and they are like a shadow of my kids and the creative, awful, brilliant, dastardly things they do! My kids just dont seem to fit into the "normal kid" parenting mode. And that means that the advice you get from those books. Just. May. Not. Work. You may have to go it alone and figure out what works yourself. It sucks, but that's parenting.
For me the hardest part is carrying though on privilege-revoking threats. I just had to return a really cool pair of light-up Sketchers to the store b/c my youngest kept lying to me about whether or not he had his socks on. I felt like the Grinch. (I guess that was the idea!)
I'm not at all convinced that the alternatives, locking the kid up, or tying him down (restraints), or ignoring gross misbehavior are any better than a few spanks. You can do the same 'how would you feel if your spouse . . .' stuff on locking up or tying down.
Tricia said" The actual Time-Out philosophy has not worked{because} that the Tyrant will not stay in Time-Out unless we sit on her, and even then we have to sit on her hands, too, or she’ll leave bloody scratches on our backs. She’s very strong."
I've seen parents who can't get their kids to do a time out fail to discipline their kids because time outs are too much work.
Once you get discipline working, you actually have a much better and healthier relationship with your kids because you're spending more time enjoying them and less time angry at them.
Don't be too quick to judge, is what I've learned.
And, yes, people always compliment us on what well behaved children they are.
I do have to disagree with the idea that being older makes you a better parent. I don't think that I could have had the patience for little kids the age I am now. I am fantastically happy I had mine when I was young. I guess to each their own.
rated.
But if a 3 y.o is poking his 1 y.o. brother in the eye, you have to do something effective to get him to stop and never do it again. That is when the issue of how do you effectively discipline an uncooperative child arises.