njd definatley take over!!
i think that is where i get cofused about natural concequenses to....if im faking an emotion to get him to realise it not right well then im making him feel guilty.....
I personally think that if you make sure they know it's the behaviour you don't like and not them personally then it's ok to tell them how your feeling and to show emotion. I think it's also important to promote empathy in children once they are able to understand the language. I know lots of adults that aren't very empathetic and they usually aren't that great to be around. The whole consequence thing is tricky and it depends on how you parent as to how effective or how well they understand them. Eg I think the attitude not to have any breakables in the house is great but there comes a time when children need to learn to respect other peoples belongings and this is a good thing to teach. In saying that children are egotistic and need help to achieve these skills. Asking lots of open ended questions when they are old enough (say 2-3+) like "how do you think that makes me feel when you do that(whatever it is)?" or "how would you feel if something you loved got broken" is a good thing I think. Anyway I suppose what i'm trying to say is that IMO we shouldn't be afraid to talk about our feelings with our children because hopefully when they are able they will openly talk about their feelings and emotions rather then bottling it up.
I agree with Olivesmummy, emotions are important for kids to learn to read. After all, they already know when you're happy and that's how they want to keep you. Sometimes I'll play up a hurt more than I'm really feeling it, just so that DS sees that emotion. 'Guilt' or empathy isn't bad to feel - it's what motivates us to be good to people! I can see how artificially generating guilt in a child can be problematic - you need to show them how others are going to act if he'd done the same thing to them. They're going to see it anyway when they're socialising more, so it's not a bad idea to practice reactions to it at home.
What I focus on more is when DS hurts someone else, then I'll 'tend to the injured' and SHOW him how to be in this situation. He's really picked it up - more the conventions than real contrition, contrition is a vague concept at this stage of the game and they WILL get it in a few years. Meanwhile, there are basic social conventions like acknowledging when you've impacted on someone negatively we have to do, as social animals. So, now, when I say 'ouchies' when DS clamps a little hard whilst BFing, he looks up at me and says 'Oh, sorry, Mummy'. It doesn't take long
Also, without focusing on people's belongings much at all, and just reacting positively, with love, compassion and reason in our home, he's mindful of other people's things now. Not always, and that's normal, but a lot of the time.
Kids don't do things to people to hurt their feelings at this age. In fact, they're usually mortified to find that a consequence of their actions has been to take the fun out of it for someone. Natural consequence = someone unhappy = desire to get back to status quo of contentedness.
That's just the way I see it
But when we "fake" emotions do we fake our emotions or the usually shown emotions? DS hurts me then I don't play with him until he apologises because I don't play with people who hurt me. And others, I assume, don't like people who hurt them (I do ask him to stop and show him how to be gentle first!).
I do withdraw a lot from him when he shouts at me. I am not as bad as I was: before, shouting in the house (my mum and my sister had really bad slanging matches) had me withdrawing to my room or even a friend's house for the week. So frequent were my withdrawals that I was scarcely missed! I had been at Uni 2 months before Mum stopped calling me down for dinner! If DS is screaming at me and I can't understand why I have to eventually walk away before my stress levels get up. This isn't a "normal person" response, but it is normal for me. What should I be modelling?
I think it's fine to walk away from screaming and i'm sure lots of people do the same. Could/do you explain why you do this? Screaming isn't acceptable behaviour and the consquence is that "because screaming hurts mummy's ears I will come back when you stop." Forgot to say about having an inside voice where you are and an outside voice where it's ok to be loud.
Last edited by Crystalwings; January 26th, 2009 at 06:41 AM.
: forgot to add the last sentence
I tell him Mammy doesn't like shouting, that's not how you talk to Mammy. Normal voice please so I can understand you.
I then say Mammy doesn't like shouting, I am going to go if it continues.
I then say Mammy doesn't like shouting, goodbye.
I actually don't mind fun shouting, we do that just fine. It's the tantrummy sort of shouting I don't like (because someone out there really does LOL). I mostly head off tantrums by figuing out the problem, talking him through the problem or distraction. But if I'm not giving him biscuits because it's dinner time soon, it's in the oven, dinner after Charlie and Lola (stupid CBeebies moving that from 6pm to 5.45pm!)... and he tantrums because of that and won't calm down, tough. He's not going to starve.
Re: carrying DD/behaviour near traffic etc. DD is now 15.7kg (very precise - had to have her weighed before moving her to a booster ) and i still often carry her in the meitai. BUt i also let her walk plenty too, since she has masses of energy to burn off. I don't think the natural consequence of running into traffic is one she can comprehend. As we discussed above, i DO think allowing a child to experience a natural consequence is important, but i think that one has to keep in mind the potential severity of the lesson - i might tell her 4 times not to jump about on the stairs if she is 4 up from the bottom, because they are carpeted and would be bruised rather than broken if she fell. She has been bruised from falls before and i know she is able to relate my warning to her own experiences. But if a car hit her there is a very likely possibility she would suffere severe injuries or even death and i know she has no experience of that and cannot yet comprehend the potential of it, so i prevent her running onto the road.
How do i do it? Similarly to RH. I tell her if she wants to walk she needs to walk right in beside me. If she runs ahead or lags behind i remind her and she falls back in next to me. She MUST hold my fingers or hand (she often likes to hold my fingers rather than have her hand held because she has a strong need to feel control in her environment i think) to cross roads and if she refuses the only other choice is to go into the buggy or meitai (depending which we have with us). This is not a consequence, it is a rule and i don't feel rules are bad or unhelpful in parenting so long as i can always anmswer the question "why?" when it is asked. Even though she cannot understand the potential for injury or death in traffic, i always explain WHY she must hold my hand or jump in the buggy, because eventually i hope she WILL understand. I never say "just because" or "because i said so" because i don't prescribe to the idea that i know better in an automatic way.
Re: guilt. Hmmm. When my eggs were smashed or i am hit i AM upset. I'm not faking the emotions i feel, though i might be showing them more frankly than i would to another adult. As Maya says, guilt is a healthy part of the conscience. A person who never feels guilt is either perfect (no such thing) or a sociopath. I scorched DP's shirt the other day while ironing it. It's one of his favourites and he really likes it and i felt SO SO bad. DP's response was to sympathise and google what could be done (immediate cold-water, washing through and 6 hours in direct sunlight brought it out just fine) and i felt even worse! He didn't "make" me feel guilty, i felt it as an internal mechanism of my conscience. I believe in emotion. In letting DD experience that emotion. Most children WILL feel guilt when it is made clear to them that they have hurt or inconvenienced someone, and that is to be embraced and learned from, not avoided. Would i cry if i didn't feel it? Probably. It would depend on the action i was responding to. When DD threw my boot at me and it hit me in the face it DID make my eyes water, but i wouldn't normally cry from physical pain, though i did allow those tears to flow and tell DD in a very sad voice that she'd really really hurt Mama.
When i was a child and teen my mother used guilt against us. She did this by letting us know how much we'd hurt, angered or inconvenienced her AND THEN SHUTTING US OUT. I NEVER do this. Within seconds of the boot hitting my face DD was hugging me and angry as i felt of course i let her comfort me. I think guilt is only a hopeless emotion when we both encourage a child to feel it and prevent them from using it to drive them into making amends. Guilt can be so productive when it helps us to figure out who we want to be and how we want to act, it only becomes something which eats away at us when we are not allowed to act upon it to change things for the better.
so for me that I am clearer about showing emotions and empathy, I think if I have this correct that what Maya, Hoobley and olive'smummy are trying to say is that you aren't showing an emotion that you aren't already feeling just maybe exagerating it so that they understand the full impact of thier actions - similar to when you are teaching them to say some sounds, you exagerate those sounds etc...
I agree with Maya that I don't think being a mother and friend is mutually exclusive, in saying that I don't think it is fair for me as a mother to put my issues onto DS so I wouldn't put his dad down in front of him or say my financial worries etc... but hope that I build a relationship with DS so that he can feel secure that he can come and discuss almost anything with me so that would be my friend hat and my mum hat would be teaching him to be a good human, being respectful and setting boundaries etc... RH I think your mum was wrong to dump her stuff on her and it is hard cause this is such a fine line.
Now I am going (with Doudou's permission) to go onto discipline with smacking. Before I go on I want to say I don't want to start a debate about whether it is o.k or not, I also understand there are different levels of smacking (from a smack on the hand for something dangerous to a belting etc...) and everyone can choose what is acceptable to them. For me I don't want to smack and believe in a more gentler way of parenting (this is my choice) and I am struggling with how things are done in my family becuase often it is so ingrained that I have to conciously stop what I am doing and struggle with alternative ways of dealing with it so your advice/discussion is appreciated.
In our family it is the "stop what you are doing cause of xyz and if you don't I will count to 3 and you will get a smack/go to your room"
Now I have a few problems with this, first of all the reason is often cause it is naughty or you've been told a hundred times you can't do that etc... and I really don't feel comfortable with that. Sometimes I feel that we as parents can be lazy and instead of removing the child from the problem we expect them to stop doing it cause we say so and if they don't we smack them or give them time out.
So is a better way of handling this to give them a 3 chances warning but the consequence being I am going to remove you? and then distract them? cause this is what I have been trying to do but have come across a few problems. EG at PIL's they have a flat screen telly which is right at DS height and he is so quick now that I don't have time to do my 3 warning chance and he is there already (& yes I know he is a little young so should I be doing something differently) so I have just been telling him stop stay away from the telly and then when he gets there removing him and distracting him.
So another problem I have with that is how do you decide on the consequence, I get that we should explain how it impacts on us and makes us feel but is there anything else that should be done cause I really don't like the naughty corner cause I think that concentrates too much on the bad behavour. Is it a case of recogniseing all behavious so there is praise for the good behavious as well.
Hope this rambling makes sense and thanks for reading....
Registered User
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks