I occasionally raise my voice. I don't call it yelling because I don't actually yell. I turn on the "mom voice." You should all know what I'm talking about because you all either have a mom or a mom figure or are a mom. I get slightly louder and way more stern. And that voice alone gets a reaction from the kid. Mind you, that reaction is most often the beginning of a fit. The beginning of a fit for her is to crunch her face up, start to cry, and make the crying noise...loudly. This is her way of saying, "Hey...I know you're mad at me and I'm pretty pissed about that."
Atleast in my mind that's what she says.
I get this reaction ALL. THE. TIME. Everytime. Without fail. At first I tried to work through it with her. Now? After an entire 6 months of it? STRAIGHT to time out. No passing go. No 200 bucks. Just straight to the time out chair.
Yeah...ask me how that's going.
At first this worked outstandingly. She'd get up in the time out chair and serve her 3 minutes. Notsomuch anymore.
I now have to physically PUT her in time out. That automatically earns her an additional minute. After I put her in time out, she then proceeds to scream and kick and hit and spit...you name it, she's probably done it.
Her minutes don't start until her fit is over and she is silent. Within the last 2 weeks, that's started taking about 30 minutes. Unless I get really pissed or we have to leave at a scheduled time. And then I'll drag her little butt all over that house and MAKE her do things while she's throwing a fit and then put her in the car and tell her she's still in time out.
It works for now, but I'm sure that won't last long.
So...here are 5 hilarious things that have happened regarding Jayna fits within the past few weeks:
- Last week she got put in time out for throwing a fit and then hitting me. She never actually hits me hard...it's more like a swat to show disapproval of what I'm saying. I told her that she can NOT hit me. It's a no no. She then jumped out of the time out chair, ran over to me and hit me again, and then ran back to the time out chair. I...had NO idea what to say or do.
- During that SAME time out, she hit me a total of 3 times. I smacked her on her butt. Later that night, she threw a fit when getting out of the bath. I dropped the towel, got on my knees, grabbed her shoulders and made her look me in the eye. She then jerked away from me, smacked herself on her bottom and said, "Just spank me, mommy!!!" Yeah...no. She's going to have to take responsibility for her actions. The ADULT way.
- Wednesday morning she had a doctor's appointment (I'll write about that in the upcoming 3 Years Old post), so we were at home until around 8:45am. About 30 minutes before it was time to go, she started a fit. I put her in time out. She started screaming this at the top of her lungs: "I DON'T LIKE YOU MOMMY! TOMORROW I TRYING TO GET MARRIED AND YOU GONNA BE SOOOO MAD AT ME!!!" What the hell?!? I stood in the next room laughing my ass off. Where does she get this junk?
- That morning fit lasted around 20 minutes. We were going to be late for the doctor, so I picked her up, kicking and screaming, out of time out and took her to the bathroom to force her to brush her teeth. (And on a related note...do you know how difficult it is to brush a kid's teeth when they're screaming and kicking and crying? It ain't no walk in the park, I'm tellin' ya.) After I was done, she started on the "trying to get married" stint. I cut her off and said, "You know, if you keep yelling like that, no one will want to marry you. Do you think daddy would still want to be married to mommy if I yelled at him like you're yelling at me? I don't think so." She was stunned and VERY confused. But it made her stop and she legitimately THOUGHT about what she was doing. And she stopped all together after that. And NO...I'm NOT proud of that moment. But when it was happening, short of actually hurting the kid, I would've done almost anything just to get her to stop yelling.
- During a different fit, I put her in time out and she took her fingernails and scratched down both of her arms. She said, "I gonna scratch myself mommy!!!!" I can only assume she was trying to get me to sympathize and baby her because she hurt herself. I just said, "That's silly, Jayna. Why would you want to hurt yourself?" Again, she was completely stunned. She had no idea what to say and then sat for her minutes and was done.
- One of her favorite things to randomly yell at me when she's in time out, no matter what I say or don't say, is, "I DON'T CARE MOMMY!" I turned the tables on her yesterday and told her, "Okay...well, fine. Then I don't care either." And I left the room. She then told me after time out, "Mommy...my feelings hurt really bad." (Not they ARE hurt...just that they hurt. That's cute to me. :) ) When I asked her why, she told me, "Because you said you don't care about me." Now remember...I didn't ever say, "I don't care about YOU." I just said that I didn't care either. When I pointed out to her that she told me she didn't care about 85 times, her response was, "But mommy...I didn't say I didn't care about YOU. I just said I didn't care about....." And she never finished. We ALWAYS assure her after her time outs that we still do and always will love her, but that her fits make us unhappy and hurt our feelings. I'm not sure why she thought I said I didn't care about her.
I shouldn't wonder why I recently had to start coloring my hair again. I'll probably have a full head of gray hair by the time I'm 35 at this rate. Oy.
So parents...what do YOU do about screaming fits? Do you ignore? Take things away? Spank?
I am mostly against spanking. She's gotten a few smacks on the bottom, but it isn't something I use everyday or even every month...and it will eventually stop working. Currently, we do time out beginning when the fit ends, we ignore her when she's screaming and throwing a fit, we take away toys and priveleges (yesterday she lost television, dressup clothes and her tea set...some of her favorite things) and we make her tell us what she did and what the consequence is. She REALLY hates that last part. And I'll keep making her do it because I want her to learn to take responsibility for her actions, good or bad.
I'd love to hear your feedback. If you don't hear back from me for awhile, contact your local looney bin. :)
2 comments:
Oh, Danielle. I wish I had some advice for you. You seem to be doing a good job, though. But, your job might get harder. I suspect that Jayna is a bright kid in the same ways Ellie is bright. Ellie has figured out that time-out is really not that big of a deal, because what's 10 minutes? it's nothing! And, at school she has figured out that even missing recess isn't a big deal because there will be infinitely more recesses. So, I've had to really try hard to find ways to hit her where it hurts! I think you are nipping it in the bud, though, so I hope you don't end up like me!! :) In the meantime, it's a good thing that she is so stinking cute!
The one thing that I am absolutely sure of is that whatever works today, won't work for very long! They learn at a rate that is exponentially faster than we can change our tactics. At 7, Kensi no longer cares about the rationale of her behavior as it applies to an adult world. Her mother was the same way, and if I had to be honest, I'm sure that I was too.
In the end, three generations later, I'm not 100% sure that discipline really accomplishes anything. I think that we absorb our environment and become whomever we were going to be anyway, but as parents and even grandparents, we will continue to fight the good fight in a hope that we are shaping the future.
She's a good kid, with good parents, she is going to turn out great!
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