Advertisements
Okay, I've held off on opening this can of worms again, but after seeing this article today, I decided to enter the fray. The reasons this has been on my mind: - We were driving through the parking lot of a mall yesterday, and we saw a mother pushing her maybe 15 month old daughter along in a cart. The baby tried to stand up, and the mother whacked her hard. The child literally crumbled back into the seat. - Since starting time-outs a few months ago with our 26 month old daughter, she now stays in her time-out place, hates them (she used to looove time-out), appears to be sincerely apologetic afterwards, and does not repeat the behavior. Just the threat of time-out makes her change her behavior. Although very active, she is very calm and loving, and not aggressive at all. - There is a 21 month old boy whom we know who gets hit by his mother and grandmother. He got into a fist fight with a 4 year old boy in a restaurant when we were out with them 2 months ago. He is fearless in that way. His mother says that he fights other kids in daycare. The scariest part of the interaction with them is that my daughter wants to play with him, but raises her arms in fear when he comes over. It was startling and upsetting for us. She does not know violence at all, we realized. She watches no TV, has had no incidents at daycare, none of the kids in our family (cousins etc) are hit, nor do they fight. That exposure that she had really rattled us. We don't live in the same state, so that has remedied that problem for now. - I was listening to the Michael Baisden radio show last week, and they were talking about spanking. It's a black show, basically. All the callers were talking about how they whacked their children, "knocked them out", "whupped their a$$", "spare the rod" and all this other rubbish. And they were laughing about it. One guy tried and failed to sound rational by saying, "After I hit my child, I sit down with him and tell him that I did it because I love him." Okay. I thought, If your daughter's husband hit her, then said that he did it because he loved her, would that make any sense? The belief that beatings equal love is common in many African communities, so I know the sentiment well. It has never made sense to me. Many of these men really DO think they are teaching their wives a lesson. I was whipped with a belt only twice in my life by my dad, and he said this very thing to me after the second time (I was about 10 years old). Even then, I recall thinking "what rubbish", and had a terrible relationship with him for the next 10 years, because of that single episode. Anyway, here's the article: [url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100412/hl_time/08599198101900]Study: Spanking Kids Leads to More Aggressive Behavior - Yahoo! News[/url]
Like
Share
any discipline will work if you are consistent and mean it. We personally do spank, its not abuse in our family. You may think it is, frankly that doesn't bother me. But if you are consistent with a time out it can work as well. I also use time outs. My dd is well adjusted, well behaved, and well loved. Judging other people when you don't know anything about them makes you look like an idiot period. You don't help anyone to change anything by judging them. Would you tell a parent they are lazy for having a child in daycare 40 hrs a week? then why say they are lazy for disciplining their child in a way that works for them. let you who is with out sin cast the first stone...just my $.02
Advertisements
Bethany Your DD and mine must be twins separated at birth. She is exactly the same. I really wonder what her bfather is like if she's hell on wheels at 4 years old. You take something away, she finds something else. They tell you to find something the child values and we can't find anything she feels can't be replaced by something else. The only good thing with all her quirks it that it is a sign of being gifted. She is scary smart and very self aware. DD said her first words at 5 months old and was walking at 9 months old. DD found where I hid the knobs to the stove, put them back on and turned it on and caused a fire. She was supposedly in the kitchen getting some water and DH was sitting in the family room which is next to the kitchen. DS ran to DH in a panic and told what she had done. DH got there and DD is watching the fire. This is the kind of stuff I'm dealing in my house.
Oh my Sleep, I think they are twins! My DD is super smart too. She is getting into a lot of trouble at school for not listening. I think she is a bit bored with what they are doing. Her vocabulary is outstanding and she is always one step ahead of you! She never hits anyone or anything so she is not aggressive. She just has a LOT of energy and can't sit for long periods of time. She has to be challenged at all times to keep her engaged. She is frequently the teachers helper just to keep her busy. She is one tough cookie!
DD's teacher made a mistake at the beginning of the year and has been paying for it since. DD pretty much runs the class and does whatever she wants because she pegged the teacher as a weak link. Her punishments have to vary even for the same offences because she does a risk assessment if she knows the same thing will happen every single time. If it remains the same then she decides whether what she wants to do is worth the punishment. If she doesn't know what the punishment will be then she's less likely to do it. She's at the point where she will ask "what are you going to do if I do this?" DD is not aggressive and will not start anything with other kids but she will finish it. DD has an outstanding vocabulary because she always asks about any new words she hears and then incorporates them into her vocabulary. She's very good with languages. She's very interested in math and science. At 2 she was wanting to know how bubbles are made... not how to blow them but the ingredients or chemical composition that allows them to be formed. Everything is an experiment to her hence the fire and her watching it. She had her Kindergarten evaluation last week and I pray they put her in the right class with the right teacher otherwise there will be chaos. DS said the evaulation was fun and DD said it was boring. Which reminds me I need to call the school to find out how their evaluations went.
Advertisements
I am very worried about Kindergarten. She is going to have to learn how to listen and how to work quietly on something for periods of time. She will need a really good teacher to keep her on her toes. All of the teachers in Kindergarten are on the older side and they all seem very old school. I may just reach out to a behavior therapist to see if they may have any ideas on how to rein her in.
Right now I've got nail polish in the sink and toilet bowl in the kids bathroom. DD tried to say it was her Hannah Montana tooth paste. Yep... the toothpaste is the same color as the nail polish so she smeared it around to in an attempt to fool me. I had hidden the nail polish and somehow she found it. I'm good at hiding things and DD is good at finding things she's not supposed to have. Ask her where her shoes are that she wore today and she won't be able to find them. I haven't removed the nail polish yet as a reminder of what she's done... Trying to see if I can sense some guilt. What gets me about her is she has this smirk when she thinks she's fooled you. "For real, that's toothpaste, not nail polish." I'm amazed at how she lies and how good she is at it. Bethany You're thinking ODD? I hope not. I'll have to PM you what I was thinking about DD.
Advertisements
nickchris
You all are in for it.. lol Wait until they can reach stuff and mix "potions" . :woohoo:
Sleep & Bethany - My dd was in the "don't care about anything camp" as well. However one thing she DID care about was her brothers getting something she did not. I didn't want to create "bad blood" between them but I did indeed use that at times.If she did x, her brothers got ice cream. And I'd tell her "You aren't being punished, you just aren't being rewarded." My, but she hated that.Or they'd get to go see a movie and she didn't. Another thing we did was delay consequences simply to keep her wondering and thinking if she should do something or not. Meaning if she did something earlier in the day and then later asked me to color with her or whatever she wanted, I used that as her consequence. "Sorry, but you did x this morning so you cannot have it". If you've heard it all before, my apologies...:)
Sleeplvr
Right now I've got nail polish in the sink and toilet bowl in the kids bathroom. DD tried to say it was her Hannah Montana tooth paste. Yep... the toothpaste is the same color as the nail polish so she smeared it around to in an attempt to fool me. I had hidden the nail polish and somehow she found it. I'm good at hiding things and DD is good at finding things she's not supposed to have. Ask her where her shoes are that she wore today and she won't be able to find them. I haven't removed the nail polish yet as a reminder of what she's done... Trying to see if I can sense some guilt. What gets me about her is she has this smirk when she thinks she's fooled you. "For real, that's toothpaste, not nail polish." I'm amazed at how she lies and how good she is at it.
Advertisements
Crick I use those methods on DD but DH doesn't. He's one of those do it while it's fresh on their mind kind of people. DD has a long memory for a child so I can wait. I always make her tell what she did wrong and why it was wrong so there's no confusion. I get called a mean mommy just about every single day.
Sleep - I agree with your approach rather than your dh's. lol! I have always had to parent dd differently than I do the boys and like you, the consistency is in shaking it up so she doesn't know what to expect. She really needed that. Now that she's 12 and has specific interests and a few things she really does hold dear, I have more leverage.Nowhere near as gifted as your dd, so I can only imagine how on your toes you have to be. I hesitate to suggest this because it's not for everyone but you might consider talking to someone who parents a RAD child. Not that your dd is RAD, just saying that a lot of the approaches RAD parents use can be very effective on the "strong willed child" (that's making your eyes roll "ya, strong willed...ha!";)) and of course they are very creative! Beth - I stole those ideas long ago from the RAD parents myself!! LOL! I also used to reward MYSELF every time I got called a name by my kids. This applied to all of my kids. If I got called mean mommy or whatever (there have been some doozies...) then I'd thank them very much for whatever treat I chose to reward myself with.