I am more than willing to pick my battles, but there are three things I won't stand for, but I'm not sure what consequences she should have. So far nothing really fazes her.
- Hitting and spitting. OK so this one came about because I swatted her a few times. Never really hard, but it was a hit. So now when she gets upset she hits. If she doesn't like something that I do, she hits me. At first I enforced one day of no movies for each time she hit me. True we were at the point that she wasn't watching that many movies anymore anyway, but just the saying "OK you can't watch any more movies today", then tomorrow and so on for each hit, seemed to do some good at first. I could see her think about it for a while, and then hit the air, or the couch or something that wasn't a person. But then one day she just got really mad. She didn't want to leave the zoo, and she really started whacking me. She got up to a week and a half of no movies before I got her to stop. And after that she just really didn't seem to care. And if she doesn't hit, she spits in my face. This level of disrespect is something that I don't think I should have to tolerate, but I don't know how to handle it. Anytime I try to discipline her she says I'm frustrated and thinks that gives her reason to be unkind, and she says she is frustrated to, and starts pitching a fit.
- Bullying her brother. Guy dishes out as good as he gets most of the time, and I try to let them handle most of their squabbles themselves. But lately Cinderella, has realized that Guy can't open doors. So she takes what ever he is playing with that she wants away from him, then runs down the hall to the playroom and slams the door shut before he can come it. I have a problem with this for 2 reasons. 1 is that fingers can get shut in doors. And 2 I don't think it is fair to treat someone unkindly in a way that they can't defend themselves, that is just bullying.
- Going to bed. Lately for some reason she has this issue with going to bed. She doesn't want to go to bed in her room. She doesn't have any problems falling asleep on our couch, if my husband or I are in the living room, or on our bed if one of us is in the bedroom. We tried leaving her door open, which works sometimes but not all the time. Lately she has decided she should climb into Guy's crib. I try to ignore it and let it go, but tonight, my husband had gone to a meeting and Guy was really tired. He went to bed about 6:30, which I knew was too early for Cinderella. So I let her lie on my bed next to me, and quietly look at books. Well she reached a point that she wasn't lying quietly so I told her she needed to go to her bed. She refused, so I picked her up and carried her in, then shut the door. Well her door has a child safety nob on it, so she couldn't get it open. So she proceeded to scream for me until she had woken up Guy. I went and got her and talked to her about it, then put her back in bed. She wasn't happy about it but went and cried. She stayed in there until Daddy got home. Then she came out. It felt like a circus getting her back in her bed, but we finally did. A while later, I heard Guy crying and the crib banging against the wall. I went in there and Cinderella was in the crib lying on top of Guy who was still trying to sleep. I was so frustrated. It was all I could do to pull her out and not get really mad at her. I don't know what to do. I don't think it is fair to Guy to have to wake him up and move him because his sister is being a pest climbing into his bed.
3 comments:
Wow... this kind of sounds like Tyler at times. I have weird advice, but it worked for us.
Tyler would hit us and he would end up in time out. After awhile that wouldn't work so his time out became lying on the kitchen floor with nothing but underwear on. It didn't matter if the floor was dirty or not. He hated the floor most because it was cold. We give him a minute for every year old he is and the trick is the time out doesn't start until he is quiet and still. This can add up to 10 minutes or so, but he got the point. He doesn't hit any more. Spitting he just started doing and hot sauce works well enough for that, mostly because it makes him drool a lot and then he gets his spit all over himself, which he doesn't like.
As for the door situation, if they have a separate playroom, just take the doorknob off. That way the door is easy enough for Guy to push open. The doorknob was off of my kids room for two years (it broke when we first moved in and we were stuck in the room for over an hour before we pried it off). Most rental places don't care if the doorknob is off, as long you put it back on the right way before you move. I loved having no knob on their door, it made things so much easier.
As for the bed situation, I have no clue what we did for Tyler and Jenna is still in the crib (for a few more days, anyway).
Good luck.
I don't know if this would work, but Alyssa has a marble jar. When she's a good listener (does something the first time I ask, helps with Dallin, whatever) she gets to put a marble in her jar. Then for disciplining I can take away a marble. It has worked well for us! I just try to make sure and give marbles for the positive things so hopefully they far outweigh the negative :)
When the girls I babysit are not behaving well I just take there favorite toy/s away. Abby the 4 year old really likes her animals. So I take them away and she is as sweet as pie. She doesn't like not having her animals. This may work for Cinderella-good luck!
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