Me freezing my butt off, struggeling for the next 5 minutes to get a new diper on a wormy little todler. (She has started tt on her own in day-care .. I know it's early, but she tells them on her own and has done like 5 wee's on the potty in the past couple of weeks ... I'm not pushing her, but if she does it on her own, that is fine by me)
Reply With QuoteIt can be difficult in the heat of the moment to express yourself. When DD woke me up by hitting me in the nose with a card book (and drawing blood!) a few months ago, all i could say (shout) for about 5 minutes was "WHY would you do that!?". Obviously she didn't mean it, didn't realise what would happen, and was really upset when i was upset, but i'd been in a deep sleep (deep enough that i didn't hear her come out of her room and into mine, which i ALWAYS do) and i was just flabbergasted. LOL.
I had a conversation with a woman who is more Gentle Discipline with me, a very civil conversation i might add! She feels that me telling DD she has hurt me or whatever when she CLEARLY isn't old enough to mean it is shaming her for being a normal kid and that the shame just disempowers her and won't help her behave differently because she will just be frozen by it, too scared to do anything in fear of being "bad". Boy did i do a lot of thinking that week! But i came to my conclusion, that i DO want to disempower her at the moment of her doing the "wrong" thing, so i can re-direct her to do the right thing. I do agree that for me i'd feel disempowered if i was told off and ONLY told off, but i try to always say a) what is wrong, b) how it makes me feel/the consequences, & c) how she can make it better. That way, yes, i am disempowering her when she does the wrong thing, BUT i immediately re-empower her to do the right thing from there, and explain why the wrong thig was wrong enough that she can learn to know to avoid it in the future. I think intention is very important too, if she hits me in the face when she's 8 there will be FAR heavier consequences (just now i just move out of range) and the "way back" with be harder. ATM i correct her behaviour all day long but it feels between us that this correction is a natural flow of unconfrontational, non-stressful learning about how it's good to act towards other people. What i hate is to see a kid shouted at and then ignored or treated "off" for a long time. With DD if i did that she would forget why i was doing it LONG before i stopped. That's why being sleep-deprived makes it all so much harder, because i want to snap at every little thing and i'm generally grumpy ALL day. Lol. It's tough this gig isn't it!?
DD is JUST starting to get it with the potty training. This morning she was playing with her wee pal, they were both in my room giggling and giggling and me and his mum were laughing listening to them and smiling at each other, and then DD comes running in, naked from the waist down (!) saying "DD did poopee!" My friend was kind of "uh-oh!" but DD says "poopee" for wee and "caca" for poop. So i went in my room and sure enough she'd taken her (dry) nappy off and done a wee in the pottyI can't wait until i no longer have to change nappies. Of course by then i'll be thinking about the next one...
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