Child discipline...
LiquidChaos66
Posts: 3,767 ✭✭✭✭
I have a 5 1/2 year old daughter. She can be a little deamon at times and I'm not sure how to handle her. We aren't pushy or bossy or rude or aggressive with her. But at times she is all of the above. With current society it's frowned upon to spank your child or use any discipline that could be construed as abuse. Fear of spanking my kid and her telling the wrong person scares the hell outta me. We have used time out, taken things away when she has been bad and deprived her of bedtime stories any lullabies. NOTHING has an effect on her. What do we do? I'm so damn stressed out with her behavior and have no effective punishments.
Life is like a blind fiver. You never know what you're gonna get.
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I should add and admit that I'm saying this as a psychologist, not a parent (yet), since mine's only 11.5 months...
****. Fire. That gleam in her glance. You gotta love a girl with spirit.
A person's vices and virtues are like their eyes, in fact: Both look the same direction, both see the same thing. They come in pairs. Just from different sides.
¨Only two people walk around in this world beardless - boys and women - and I am neither one.¨
As far as spanking, it is not child abuse. I have had no problem spanking my children if their actions warranted it, in fact, I have done it in front of LE and have had many a conversation with LE in regards to spanking. The problem with spanking is that some people do it in anger and it does get borderline abusive. I never spank in anger, in fact, I'll ask my kids if they deserve a spanking for whatever action they did and I'll get a honest answer.
The other thing I do is to watch what I tell them because anything you say to them you had better be prepared to follow up on it, otherwise your child will know that you don't follow up on what you say.
At my kids' age right now the biggest thing that gets to them is to tell them how disappointed I am in what they have done. My kids want daddy to be proud of them and what they do so when I let them know I am disappointed it does affect them and makes them want to do better. On the flip side, when they do good, I gush over them letting them know how proud I am of them.
Could not agree more with both of you.
Our problem is we are governed by the rules of the gestapo at TN Child Services because both grand kids are "guardianship".
Every time one of them needs discipline it becomes counseling and our hands are tied. And heaven forbid if I even raise my voice.
I guess we should be thankful they are both members of the brain club and their grades are all A's. They have seen what drugs can do and I am sure that won't be a problem. But they have learned to play the game and are very good at it.
I would love to take one of them "out behind the woodshed" when I get a I dare you smart ash remark. If I could just hold that strap in their face and scare them it would go a long way.
I was beat up every way imaginable when I was a kid and I would never do that to a child, but a spanking sure crosses my mind.
... Maybe I was just lucky, Raising kids was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do.
Every child is different. Some things work for my son that don't work for my daughter, and vice versa. So take anything anyone has to say with a grain of salt.
I actually regret having spanked my kids. Many times I was angry and it really didn't teach them anything except how to react. The only ones I don't regret were the stepping off the curb types of life endangering things where I was actually preternaturally calm. Even then, my kids were usually too small to understand why Dad would hurt them. I'm not sure that's what helped them learn so much as the fear they sensed from me and other family members in those times.
I'm becoming more a fan of natural consequences. I'm not exclusively using the "Scream Free Parenting" stuff that's out there, but I like some of the ideas. It basically boils down to keeping your cool, setting rules and sticking to them, with natural consequences for breaking them.
Pretty common sense stuff actually, but it's kind of a parental attitude change more than a punishment system.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
The biggest issue is that she is too damn smart for her own good. If she is in a public place she knows she can get away with hell cause there are people there and she knows we have a hard time disciplining her in public. She will give us this crappy little smirk and purposefully break the rules. There was one instance where we were at a store and she was doing something she shouldn't have. So I grabbed her arm and pulled her away... Yeah im an adult and quite larger than her but I come at her with kid gloves when in public. I don't need some a-hole getting the wrong idea and calling cops on me for abuse. She then turns around, Yells that im hurting her and throws herself on the floor saying I pushed her. No one was around to witness it except my wife. I looked at my wife in total shock and just walked away. Her preschool and kindergarten have taught the children that adults should never lay a hand on them and when they do they need to be reported to other adults or to make a scene to help protect themselves.
So we told her in the car that what she did was wrong. We told her that if she did that people could call the police and I would never get to see her again. I would get thrown in jail and they would take her away from us. The idea of her getting taken away from us didn't phase her at all. She doesn't respond to scare tactics and always figures out how to make any punishment seem not as bad as it should be. I hope to god this is a phase. We are trying so hard to raise a child who will grow up and make a difference in the world... but honestly... we are beyond disappointed with her actions and heart broken that she does what she does. We honestly feel like we did something wrong with her and aren't good parents.
Don't blame yourselves.
Its hard not to feel that way sometimes. Especially after really hard days with her. Yeah it breaks my heart to discipline her to the point where she is crying and sad... THEN TO HAVE HER NOT LEARN FROM IT! there have been countless nights where we have sat on the couch after she went to bed and wondered what the hell happened! lol It is a gigantic learning situation... but for someone like me who thinks on a extremely logic based line to have this situation. I just cant understand how she can not learn when she has been so visually distraught over her punishments.
He's fourteen now. He is good with computers. We got him a new laptop for Christmas, cause the one we got him five years ago went titz up. He can say a little, when he wants to. Mostly he just sits happily watching the same dinosaur vids over and over on his laptop. School has taught him enough they can take him to KFC on the short bus, he will stand in line, give his order, count out his money, and take his change. All the rest of the family except me is still in denial -- They all keep repeating to each other the same trite phrases about how smart Alex is cause watch him use a computer. Bull -- he shittz his pants, fourteen years old. Lovable happy child; but can't get potty trained. A car ride round a cloverleaf ramp freaks him out; crap in his pants does not. World of things he cannot learn; couple things he can learn. That's Alex.
Put yourself for a moment in his parents' place -- Is it their fault? Did they do something wrong? Is there something they did not do?
No. That's Alex. Better question is, what can he do?
Your girl is smart. Has ****. Cannot conform. Sounds like the very epitome of many a great American, to me.
Buy a laundry basket that if turned upside down looks like jail or prison bars. Or get an actual cage with a lock on it.
When you take away a favorite toy or electronic device put the laundry basket over it on a high shelf and tag it with a release date.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
Einstein, Newton, Curie, Hawking and Galileo level genius.
I know a woman who, when I said "I'd be turning her bottom red about now", replied; "I never discipline her unless I've told her to do something three times". That teaches a kid they don't have to obey you the first two times you tell them something.
A quick thought about "Never spank your children, you're just teaching them to hit"
What do the Masai, the Comanche, and the Mongols have in common?
These three separate groups all believed that children should never be spanked. They also produced the most violent adult warriors the world has ever seen. Think about it.
If it becomes necessary to spank, you're not teaching your child to hit. Any group of 2 year-olds , who've never seen hitting, will hit each other if not enough food or toys or nap time are provided. It's just human. Spanking the child teaches them what it feels like to be hit, so they're less likely to do it to others. It also teaches them that continued unreasonable behavior will eventually bring about unreasonable behavior (hitting) from their parents.
Good luck to you, and remember, if you don't get control NOW, you are in for a terrible time in a few years.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
Im just gonna have to hold on to all this frustration until she is older... I plan on teaching her how to properly sword fight... ill take a few cheap shots at her while she is learning to make up for her attitude.