So the other day we were faced with a question and were surprised that we didn’t have a straight out answer for it.
We were applying for Aidan to attend an Edu-care centre in the area (we want to send him for half days to socialise with kids his own age and to give my mother – who has been watching him all this time – a little break in the mornings) and one of the questions was “How do you reprimand your child?”.
I like that they asked because it means they are willing to follow through on your “beliefs” but I didn’t know what to write. I couldn’t very well write…Pleading, stare-downs, the occasional tap on the hand and some failed time-outs.
As a general rule (knock on wood, cross fingers, throw salt, no jinx no jinx) Aidan isn’t very ill behaved…He tries my patience though like when I tell him not to touch something he will just stand there close to the object, close enough to make me very nervous while he says, “no touch”
Or I will say, “Aidan don’t you put your hand on that and he will use his foot” I kid you not…He is also very messy just pulling things out of cupboards and throwing things out, for the sake of throwing things out (this includes juice and yogurt) and in shops he will want to put things in other people’s baskets and walk off with strangers.
But for now he is pretty easy to distract and not much naughtiness I can’t control, no tantrums and crying and wanting things he cant have (knock on wood, cross fingers, throw salt, no jinx no jinx) if he gets tired he just sits down on the floor and says done…
So I haven’t had to reprimand him much…but the need is starting to rear it’s ugly head people!!!… Like when he tried to stick a metal spoon into the plug socket…Seriously I watched him walk to kitchen take a spoon from the drawer and then walk over to a plug remove the safety cover thing and try to shove spoon in there…He also went to kitchen got a apple, climbed on a chair then hurled the apple at the microwave. He purposely spilled his juice on the floor so he could lay in it and my favourite one… his new habit of taking his plate of food turning it around hiding his food under it and saying DONE! … you know that sorta WHY! WHY ON EARTH WHY! kinda thing!
So reprimanding is becoming an issue…
– I tried tapping him on his hand, the first time he hit me back and burst out in fit of laughter, the next time he was so taken aback that he just cried – that worked well for a bit because after that I could show him the two fingers I used to tap him as a warning and he would just stop what he was doing and throw himself on the floor all defeated – my magic fingers didn’t work for very long though, the fear wore off…
– I tried talking to him, like those mothers people judge in the shops because they are all “Now Johnny we don’t act this way, momma disproves of this behaviour and thinks that if you want respect you need to give respect and this is not cultivating respect” Okay I lie more like “Aidan don’t you dare” *wide eyes*. . . That works sometimes, but not always
– Then last night when he threw his food on the floor and hid the rest under his plate exclaiming DONE, I thought I would give time-out a try again (The first time he was clearly to young and kept crawling out of the “naughty corner”) But this time he sat on the Ottoman I earmarked for this purpose, he sat there and started merrily humming while playing with his shoelaces, he eventually started moaning and I told him that , that is were naughty kids sit… so the jury is still out on whether that worked at all.
How do you instil discipline?
I'm fairly inconsistent, I don't have one method of discipline. Sometimes I threaten with a smack on the bum but count to 3 first to give them a chance to fall in line. Sometimes I send to the room. Sometimes I just yell.
This made me feel so much better… being a parent is so daunting thanx 🙂
Oh, gosh, it depends how frazzled I am. Most of the time I count to 5 – if I get to 5 they get a tap on the bum. It depends on the problem, though. Sometimes a reprimand is all that's needed, other times they lose a privilege. And sometimes I yell. More often than I like, I'm ashamed to admit.