Im still learning! (How to Discipline Children)

Name: ickledink

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Product:	How to Discipline Children
Date:	12/05/02 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Teaches your child to be a nice human being.

Disadvantages: Knowing what is right

I'm not saying i know best im just giving you a view into how i do it, and who says i am doing it right? This is a very delicate subject i think you will agree.

So where do i begin?
Personally i think children have become more rebellious than when i was a child.
I am 27, and when i was a youth if either of my parents said no that was it, i didn't do it. That went double when my dad was concerned. I never dared back chat and i very rarely stepped out of line, for fear of what would happen. My parents did not like to smack but if i pushed it then i got one round the back of the legs. It makes my eyes water now but then when i look back on it i did deserve it! I remember thinking how i hated them for doing it; after all i was only trying to gain some control over my own life. Adults rules didn't you just hate them when you were a child?

For the first two and a half years of my daughter's life i had her dad to consult on the discipline issue. We agreed not to smack as she was only small; removing her from the area with a no, usually did the trick, even if you had to repeat yourself.
The tantrums she used to throw i found very embarrassing. Some used to be to such a degree i would wish the ground would swallow me up; obviously smacking her would just have made her worse so in the end i used to stand or sit down beside her and say mummy will wait until you have finished and then you can use your words. When i first tried this, never in my wildest dreams did i think she would understand fully. Was i in for a surprise! She was lying in a screaming heap when i said it, she kept crying for half a minute or so, then stopped and said i've finished mummy. So that showed me. Then as she learnt more words she would tell me what was wrong (use her words) even if she did throw tantrums still.

Now i am a single mum (we didn't use our words!), i do consult my ex on such issues but obviously i have to do
what i feel is best. My ex said if you have to smack her then do, i hated this. I never wanted to have to resort to smacking. I used to give her 3 warnings then she would get a 'time out', i would remove her from what she was doing and if we were at home i would put her in her bed room. Not for long mind, a minute or so would do the trick. I would then return and ask her if she knew why she had been put in her room, for a child of just over two and a half years 9 times out of 10 she could tell me she had done wrong, then i would let her carry on playing...until next time.
That was unless she did something that was totally unacceptable.

When my daughter got to the latter part of the terrible twos she started pushing her luck, back chatting, spitting, and biting. All the lovely stages they go through, do they have a manual??
She saw one of her friends biting once and that was it. She then bit one of her other friends when she got cross with them, sounds bad enough? Well, she sunk her teeth in to this little girls face right below her eye; that warranted a smack on her naked bum. Just one, stingy, smack and a whole lot of silence from me. I have to walk away. I never taught my child to do something as awful as that.

So there you have it, i don't like to smack but if pushed i will. I know that smacking her for her biting is like two wrongs but she needs to know that things like that are unacceptable and very painful!

In my opinion i think that if you were smacked as a child then you are more likely to smack as a parent.
My ex used to get a clip round the head by his mum; he has a brother and a sister who all remember the pain of their mum's wedding ring on their skull. No i never did get on with her and if she ever touches my child in that way.....ok back to what i was saying.
Like wise my boyfriend remembers being smacked as a child he also comes from a big family, he smacked his kids...hmmm i w
onder!

I have just started reading a really good book on how to communicate with your child so they talk and listen to you. (I will get back to you on its name-am moving, its hell!) I recommend it; i am learning some interesting techniques and none of them involve shouting or smacking. It's all about what and how you say it and like the book says it is quite hard to break old habits.
I'm not saying that this will be the only form of discipline i use, if i see the need to smack i will. My daughter always gets told after why she received it, and normally just me saying 'do you want a smack when you get home?'(Doesn't that sound horrible) will put her off being naughty. The thought of the sting was enough to put me off when i was a child as well!

Final words....I hate smacking my child. But you just try to bring up your child in the best way you know, until you know different!

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