I Love You
Nothin' like spanking your kid good-night.
The Dragon has been hitting The Princess a lot lately. Since The Princess refuses to slug her back (99.9% of the time), it looks like it's going to be falling to me to hand out the corporal punishment.
I really don't like spanking. It's not something that is done a lot around here, but in this case, I'm pretty much at my wits end. The Dragon just won't stop doing it. If The Princess would fight back, I think that The Dragon would realize that it HURTS and that it is NOT FUN to get pushed/pinched/hit/bit by someone else.
Of course, I can't really blame The Princess for not hitting back. I mean, if she did, I'd have to punish her too. I guess she's a little smarter than I gave her credit for.
So tonight, The Dragon hit The Princess with a toy just moments before she was supposed to be tucked in for bed. I'm not kidding about the "moments" - she was already IN bed when she did it. As a last resort, I've been telling The Dragon that if she doesn't stop hurting her sister, I'm going to start giving her spankings each time she does it. Yeah, I know that doesn't make any sense:
THWAP! THWAP! THWAP!
"Do you hear me? WE. DO. NOT. HIT."
THWAP!
Well, she got one spanking tonight. I'm serious about the ONE. It was only one. I still feel guilty. But nothing else is working... so what do you do?
posted by Queen Karana @ 9:33 PM
2 Comments:
We decided before we had kids that we would never spank. Mostly because Joel was regularly beaten by his father growing up and we just wanted to go the opposite way.
My kids aren't too physical, but they sometimes have their moments. Time out works very well for us...the trick is to be unemotional about it when you put them into time out. We don't do the one minute for every year of their age thing, they have to stay in time out until they've calmed down and have made a plan of action. Saying sorry is not enough, they need to tell me exactly what they are going to do to fix the problem (not what they are NOT going to do), so in the case of hitting I would expect to hear something like, "When I am angry at my sister I will count to ten and/or leave the room" If they say "I won't hit Bria" then they're right back to time out until they come up with something better.
Hope that helps. I'm not a guru of discipline or anything, but we've found this really works for us when we are consistent. The days I'm not consistent and I yell a lot, the kids usually act even worse. It's a tough job being a mom.
Each child is different, but an occasional controlled spanking will not harm them for life.
I agree with Lara that I wouldn't let mine out of time out until they could come up with what they should have done instead. I also went by theme of "Do you want to live in a home where violence is acceptable?"
With an ADD kid you can't use time out all the time, you have to vary the punishment to get their attention. I don't think Dragon is ADD though.
Role playing with stuffed animals during home evening might help. "Blaming" it on her hands and then explaining she has to be responsible for her hands is a new twist. (You hit Princess, now you have to wear the naughty gloves for ten minutes. Seems silly but it can work) Be creative.
You can't solve these problems overnight, sadly. But I'm sure she will be fine.
Post a Comment
<< Home