Reply With Quotejust quickly, cos DS isn't allowing me much time on here! Kids just don't really appreciate ultimatums. Even saying "just one more time" they'll nod and not understand!
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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...
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....
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just quickly, cos DS isn't allowing me much time on here! Kids just don't really appreciate ultimatums. Even saying "just one more time" they'll nod and not understand!
Before DD was about 18-20months i didn't even attempt discipline that relied on her having control over her actions. I would tell her not to touch something, but while physically removing her. Babies have no impulse control, patchy understanding of language (i.e. "Don't touch the tv" is very hard for them to understand and they usually understand you to mean "touch the tv" because the concept that one word would reverse the meaning of the whole sentence takes a bit of time to get used to!) and a total lack of ability to see ahead. Even a 3 year old finds it hard to predict the consequences of their actions, a baby under 2 has little to no chance.
So in your situation njd i would tell DS he's not to touch the tv as i lifted him away and gave him something else to touch, preferably something flat and bright (like the tv). When DD was small one of those magna-sketchers (with the magnetic pen and screen with metal filings behind to "draw" pictures with? kwim?) was excellent for her to explore the tv-like properties without wrecking a tv. DD is 3 in April and she STILL touches the tv!
My warning system is a 3-strike one, but i never threaten her. My process goes:
"DD please come back from the television, it doesn't like to be touched"
"DD come and sit here please, right away from the television"
"DD i've asked you to come here and you're ignoring me. Would you like to come away from the tv and sit/read/whatever with me? Or would you like to go and have some time out to think about listening to Mama?"
If she is touching the tv because she's curious she will usually stop on the first request, or sometimes the second and she NEVER takes the time-out option. However if she's touching the tv because she knows i don't like her to (which she does on occasion, ALL kids test boundaries afterall) she ignores all requests and usually ends up sitting on the stairs thinking it over for a minute or two. I generally use the time she's out there to plan a far more engaging activity for us both.
Smacking to me is one of the most interesting aspects of discipline and shows what clever creatures humans are in some ways. In studies if you get a rat and put it in a cage with an object you don't want it to touch (they've done this with different colours, like a black ball and a white ball) and set up an object-linked punishment (i.e. you electrify the black ball so if it IS touched it delivers a small shock) the rats learn very quickly to avoid the black ball. If a technician uses a rod and visual observation to punish the rat with a shock everytime it touches the black ball, even if the technician manages to shock while the rat is ACTUALLY touching the ball, the rat very quickly begins to avoid the rod and the technician and it takes days and days of training to learn not to touch the black ball. The fact that some parents say they smacked their kid once and they never did whatever it was that got them the smack again means human children are capable of quite amazing levels of reasoning and logic. Of course it could also be that parents perception is skewed - the rats with aversion to the electrified black ball stayed averted for many months after the training was completed (years and years in rat-time) but those who learned from the rod lost the aversion to the ball within days of training ending and never lost their aversion to the rod and remained nervous around the technician. I know lots of kids who, once smacked, don't repeat the crime THAT DAY, but the next day might the lesson about the object is usually gone though the aversion to being smacked remains.
Bx
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I love this approach hoobley and really makes sense what you are saying, thank you.
Oh can anyone recomend have any authors or books where I could do some more reading?
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Personally, I love Pinky McKay's book Toddler Tactics (it's free if you renew your ABA subscription, JIC that applies to you). I'd be happy to lend it to you if you PM me with your address. Can't recommend it highly enough. It covers everything, but helps you see things from your toddler's perspective. A very gentle approach.
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Very interesting debate ladies, some great points made.
In regards to the further reading Louise Porter is excellent and her behaviour management model is about nurturing the whole child through promoting positive self esteem.
I personally think you can be friendly with your children but they also need to know boundries otherwise you can be setting them up for failure. I have seen this happen on so many occasions where parents are their childs friend and it impacts on other relationships for the rest of the childs life. Children crave structure to some degree and to learn to respect other people's belongings and feeling is a life skill. I have seen children at work who do the same negative behaviour every day several times a day knowing what the consequence may be just to test if we will be consistant and follow through. In my experience being your child's friend doesn't always make a happier child because they are often the children who don't understand boundries. I also think in regards to the friends debate that one of the fundamental flaws with this is that we choose our friends and deciding to be your childs friend isn't giving them that choice. I am great friends with my parents now but as a child I knew they were my parents and didn't want them as friends. As RHF said being your child's friend isn't like having a real friend becuase it isn't an equal partnership.
I agree with Hoolbey in regards to time out for babies and distracting them. I also wanted to point out that time out doesn't have to be a 'naughty chair'. IMO effective time out is removing the child from the situation. It could be that they need to do a quiet puzzle to calm down or go to their room for a couple of minutes for some time out. It doesn't matter if they play, you aren't rewarding the behaviour, you are removing them from a negative situation.
How true! In fact the stairs is our chosen point of reflection because DD loves to look at the stained glass window and the "interesting" pattern (horrifically busy to my eyes, but it's a rental, what can you do) on the carpet. This always inspires a bit of peace in her. I think of the time out as like going to splash cold water on your face. It should stop and refresh and cleanse the negativity away, ready for the next adventure.
Bx
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Hmmm, I still think we're going round in circles about our definition of 'friends' in this context, though Ryn and I have settled on what we mean about it. Plus, I do believe, in a certain metaphysical way, that DS chose us as parents, although I realise you mean 'choosing friends' in a different way. I mean 'friends' in a way that is specific to DS's and my relationship, and others think I mean 'friends' in the way they have friends. It's possible to have all sorts of friends, even ones you actively guide and teach
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I was thinking about this recently.
How do I teach consequences?
Well, let's start with how I teach about Shroedinger's cat, to take today's example of what DS wanted to know about. (I know it's Shr?dinger but I can't have the o-umlaut here). There's a lot to explain first. But to DS, it's just a picture of a cat on the cover of a book Mammy is reading. He doesn't need to know much about quantum theory just yet, nor does he need to think about trapping cats in boxes with a radioactive source. I can explain to him that the act of observing changes the thing observed; that we don't know something until we've seen it. So do we know if there are Moose on the farm? (DS asked that one.) Let's find out. There may not be, according to what we know from before, but we don't know if we don't look. I think not, but I'm not always right (is it OK to teach our childer that?). OK, so there were no moose, but that's Shroedinger's cat sort of stuff that a 2-year-old can almost understand. You don't tell him that the moose were there and weren't there but they only were definately not there when we went out and looked.
So how do I teach consequences? Can I teach that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Yes. I can teach DS that if he does ABC then XYZ happens. And he can see that's logical - if he pushes a train, it moves. If he pulls the light cord in the bathroom, the light comes on. Push the buzzer and the bell rings. Hit Mammy and she stops cuddling you. Those are all logical reactions.
WRT smacking, that's rarely logical beyond the "you do that and you get a smack." Why do you get a smack? Mammy stops cuddling because she is hurt, the TV turns on because you press a button, Da reads a book when you take him one... why if I get my train set out when you've just put it away do I get a smack? Makes no sense.
DS is "destructive" and as a consequence my things have moved away from him and he may not touch my palmtop. He is also neat; he puts rubbish in the bin (great for me when I can't be bothered to move in the afternoon!). He does this with litter too. He has learnt that if he does something well for the first time, he hears the words "good boy" or "well done" - in fact he says this to himself if he has just done something he finds tricky and I haven't realised just how much skill he needed for this task. He has learnt to take pride in his achievements, which is great.
I am waaaay more carrot than stick though. I don't ignore unwanted behaviour but I do change it. DS learns to say please. DS learns not to pull the curtains (he saw my mum do that once, just drawing the curtains, and pull the whole rail down on top of her!). Everything, he learns. By learning natural consequences from the start I think it will help him draw consequences in the future. So if he learns that if he can't go near the road if he isn't careful, he learns to be careful near roads. He may not comprehend why, but when he does the consequence for me is that he realises there is method to Mammy's madness, and listens to my rules more because they make sense.
I really hope this works LOL.
BTW - friends. We like and respect each other. Parent-child - he does as I say, because he likes and trusts me so knows there's a reason for it. Both work well. But not changing parent-child to peers - we get symapthy and help about things children shouldn't worry about.
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This is such a cute picture RH and I think it is wonderful that he is taking pride in his achievements. I also agree that I think it is healthy to teach kids that we as parents and adults don't always know or have the right answers but we teach them how to look for those answers. I also agree that a child shouldn't be put in a situation where they are told things that shouldn't be their worry.
I also like looking at time out more about removing them from the situation and distracting them then putthing them in the naughty corner so this is a great perspective.
Thanks Jen, I am currently a member of the ABA and would love a copy of Pinky's book about toddler tactics so I will be renewing very soon
Now RH you and others have mentioned about every action having an equal and opposite reaction and this has got me thinking (and yes I could be too pandantic here so feel free to tell me) I certainly believe that every action has a reaction I just get a bit hung up with 'equal and opposite' part.... see I am probably looking at this the wrong way... does this mean if kids act in a positive way the opposite reaction to this is that they are treated in a negative way, the same way you flip the coin and so the reaction is the opposite of the action or is it more a step by step process so child acts in a positive way so the reaction is also positive because it perpetuates itself and like attracts like - does that make sense cause I tend to drive myself crazy with these sorts of thoughts that just go round in circles...
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this is i think what i need to remember the most!So how do I teach consequences? Can I teach that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Yes. I can teach DS that if he does ABC then XYZ happens. And he can see that's logical - if he pushes a train, it moves. If he pulls the light cord in the bathroom, the light comes on. Push the buzzer and the bell rings. Hit Mammy and she stops cuddling you. Those are all logical reactions.
on our way to church this morning DS says "mummy, your my friend!" and my responce was "thankyou i would love you to be your friend but im also your mummy so that means i have an extra job to look after you and our family"
he pondered this for a minute and then said"mummy i have 2 friends" and i said "do you? who are they?"
"you and daddy"
so i think you can be a friend and a parent
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That is so beautiful, Doudou!
Really, who are the two people who teach and show their kids about how to treat other people? We are! When the chips are down, our kids need to know that have at least two friends
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Doudou, that's gorgeous!
Equal and opposite: think of it in that if you push something, then a force is exerted to stop that push from moving the object. So if DS does something negative, my reaction is to extend my force/will to stop that. Of course, my standards for him are such that if he does something good, he's pushing away from my standard so my praise is pulling him back up to the mark. Just think about the pleased reaction when DS says "thank you" unprompted: that is the equal and opposite reaction because when he hits the standard I don't have to push or pull, I can just enjoy. Does that make sense? Our forces are at 0, which is the way we want it to be, so we are happy.
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