Today after Mary Grace got a timeout for taking a toy away from William, Mary Grace handed down her own justice to her bunny. "Bunny, you going to timeout for pushing that other bunny". She mimicked the same treatment she gets, to the word! After a little while, she went back to the bunny and asked "Do you know why you're in timeout?", then made the bunny apologize to the other bunny.
Anne and I were cracking up, under our breath.
We also took the kids to Seabreeze amusement park for the first time. We expected William to patiently sit in the stroller, which he did. We thought Mary Grace would go on the kiddie rides, but the first thing she saw was a grown up ride that scared her. She was too scared to set foot on the ground the rest of the time that we were there. Poor little angel.
William is a little housewrecker. His latest trick is ignoring Anne and I when we call out his name for bring naughty. He's getting in to everything, and timeouts are a big joke to him. We're at our wits end, and welcome ideas from the more experienced readers of this blog!
I’m in no position in an “official” capacity to instruct someone how to deal with their children in terms of punishment. The only approach I believe is helpful is to provide subjective reasoning e.g. providing personal experience, facts, logical thought/association process directing our child rearing actions, and the results.
ReplyDelete1. Many forms of punishment exist in varying degrees of severity, each resonating differently with each individual subject,
2. I was the by product (by today’s standards) of a physically & mentally abusive environment thereby teaching me exactly what I didn’t wish to be or want to repeat as a parent,
3. My older brother’s wife raised her two boys with the Dr. Spock, “spare the rod, spoil the child” approach, I believe due to this being the child rearing technique of choice in her household & most likely a underlying fear/belief my brother’s inability to recognize his repetition of learned loud, threatening childhood mannerisms may also include the often remorseless, over the edge, physical pounding delivered for perceived transgressions,
4. As a result, my brother’s children are nearly manic depressive e.g. their sole mental states dwell between happy (only when being completely hedonistic) and somewhere between numb or downright incorrigible curmudgeons when corrected or directed to do something necessary (either for themselves, their parents, or the greater good),
5. My children on the other hand are mostly happy only having their occasional “moments” of surliness driven by selfishness which is immediately and appropriately corrected,
6. Our approach has often been to try (we don’t always succeed) to balance each other as disciplinarians i.e. good cop bad cop where each changes roles often (not in a single event response – you don’t want to appear bipolar or unbalanced) which keeps each other from going overboard,
7. You need to appreciate, to realize, you are a teacher first and a parent second,
8. Children are far smarter & more perceptive than most folks give them credit for i.e. every situation, every action/reaction is a teaching event, a lesson learned, filed away,
9. We give our children this direction – take care of the stuff you know is your responsibility, don’t sass your parents, treat others like you want to be treated, if you get to a point where you are doing something you’re unsure of, you must stop & ask yourself, “Is this the right or wrong thing to do?” If you answer the question honestly, you’ll never go wrong and will rarely hear anything from us. Mess up and we’ll be on you like a bad rash. The choice is yours.
10. We try to make every effort to explain rationale why you are doing (or did) something so even if they don’t comprehend the reason initially, they will make the realization/association later,
11. We try not to contradict each other in front of them; to show a unified approach, even if you don’t agree with each other’s response, go off and discuss quietly (kids have the ability to hear a mouse fart @ 2000 feet when you’re saying something you would rather they didn’t hear) admit your mistakes with transparent honesty later and apply those learning’s for the next lesson,
12. If your approach is one sided (one parent dominates) and weakly inappropriate (“You’re in timeout!” and they act unphased/unaffected) then they’ll quickly learn and apply how to manipulate you to their advantage then find, probe, & continually expand the limits of your tolerance,
13. You need to be consistent with each other and with yourself, admit your mistakes freely, and always explain openly, never forget to tell them you love them even when you must punish them to establish rules & limits for tolerable behavior.
14. No offense intended but, sometimes the only certain method for imprinting a negative action vs. consequence association is to turn their little backsides red, be absolute & unwavering about it, and explain yourself after they’ve had time to absorb the lesson and appreciate it from a more objective perspective. You’ll feel badly (if you don’t you’re not human) and need time to calm yourself down and shouldn’t deliver it in a heated fashion or without “supervision” to prevent accidental passionate overreaction,
I’ve only heard glowing reports from our children’s teachers & other parents so, I’m pretty sure this approach has paid itself off with enormous dividends in their cases.