Text from me: "We will not be meeting you at the zoo. We are not rewarding this behavior." Time Stamp: 7:14 am,
My early risers have been rising extra early for over a week now. I am talking 5am, and not just the baby to eat. Both of them. They are tired which will always exaggerate their bad behavior. There have been plenty of mornings when I am putting Little Man down for his nap and I am making Little Miss take some bedroom quiet time. In fact it is 12:30 while I am typing this and they have both been in bed for 45 minutes already.
This is what we are dealing with:
- Not listening
- Sassing back by either letting some sort of yell or saying "NO"
- Pressing the limits
Then my parenting brain kicks in and I am saying to myself: If I don't do something about this she is never going to listen to me. She will have no respect for authority and she will be a teenager running around doing God knows what.
Then I take a deep breathe and pray. I thank God for letting me be her Mommy. I thank God for blessing me with children at all (tomorrow's post about PCOS). I then am reminded of Proverbs 22:6 "Train your child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will depart from it."
I know I need to 'nip this in the bud' as they say. I know I need to be consistent with punishments for not listening and sassing back. Oh and the mommy guilt that gets me when I put her in her room! Time outs are not working, the whole 1 minute for every year of life idea. It's just not working. She screams for 3 minutes and then does the exact same behavior. Making her sit in her room that seems to be working, sometimes.
What works for you?
I am looking for some sort of reward/consequence system. I am thinking something we can transition into allowances when the time comes.
From Susan on Facebook:
ReplyDeleteHi Sara,
first I just said a prayer for you after reading your blog. Eden was my stubborn one (like Kaitlyn) Meredith yes she had her moments but most of the time she did what she was told even her punishments; if I told her to sit in time out she did then when it was over (her age per minuted) we would hug, she would tell me why she sat there and usually would not do it again.
Then Eden came along and tested EVERYTHING including my patience and yes many times I would say I needed a nap. I would put her in timeout (we had a chair in the middle of the floor with no toys) She would get up, I would put her back, She would get up screaming louder, I would put her back as she kicked me. I never said a thing but reminded her over and over again that time out would not start until she sat in the chair. Some days it would take 30 minutes or more for 3 minutes and to get her to tell me what she did wrong or let me hug her and tell her I love you (that would take another 30 minutes) I am not the most patient person. We then had to move to a "preschool system their teachers used". They would have a clip and would move from green, yellow,blue, or red. They would each start on green moving to yellow (warning),taking something away (blue), red taking away a priviledge ( reading they have always loved, watching tv etc. If they had a good day with no moving the clip they got to tell David when he got home which they loved especially because he made a big deal about it. They loved when they knew we were proud of them. I also tried to praise them during the day if I catch them being good, sharing or not throwing a fit etc. I will still praise them if they do something (Eden let Meredith pick the movie yesterday).
Great tips!