Being More Disciplined

March 6th, 2010

I’m looking for advice. Those of you with children: How do you handle discipline, and when did you start really “doing” it? Those of you without children: I value your thoughts, too; how would you handle it, and what is your experience, and what have you observed?

Violet is asserting her very normal two-year-old need to claim some control over her little life. I respect this, I encourage this. There are tantrums, and that’s fine. When it comes to my ideas for how scenarios will go, there are some I win, some I lose, and I’m cool with that. So she refuses to get in the bathtub, often refuses to sit in her stroller or a high chair—So? So she refuses to respect our requests that she not throw food on the floor—Frustrating, but not life-threatening. So she refuses to be strapped into her car-seat or have her diaper changed—Not optional, sorry, Kid. I think these are standard scenarios in a household with a toddler, who, much like an infant or, say, a 14-year-old, is 99 percent wonderful, and, always, a human being, after all.

When it comes to discipline, Steve and I picked a few things a while back that would be “not allowed.” These included:
- messing with the TV and components in the living room (the TV in our room is fair game, when plugged in, which it is sometimes)
- hurting the cats
- climbing onto the wide shelves behind the couch

When she does these things, we “punish” them, mainly by (pretty gently) putting her on the floor. For some reason, she has always considered being put on the floor devastating. After a fairly short run of consistent responses as described, she rarely did these things. Now, when she does them (with a smirk, clearly to push the boundaries), we can usually just say, “Are you allowed to be doing that?” and she ceases.

Unfortunately, this “Are you allowed …” strategy is not translating, as I hoped it would, into other areas. Let me be specific here: This week was/is what I’ve been calling “Bruiser Week” here in Vibble-Town. Grabbing toys from kids at the park gave way to pushing kids off of mat-toys at Gym n’ Swim, which gave way, yesterday at playgroup, to shoving kids (and an adult) repeatedly and with enough force that she knocked her little friend Greta to her knees from behind.

All of this is not to mention what a tornado of destruction she was at the hostess’ house. While the nice hostess was gracious about it all and didn’t seem to care, I was concerned to see Violet so unwilling to cooperate with ANY of my requests that she, oh, stop removing framed photographs from shelves, stop breaking the leaves on plants, stop dumping beads out of bowls onto the floor, all of this repeatedly.

Once or twice is one thing, but the roughness and rudeness was over and over, despite my gentle, unemotional “reminders,” which gave way to emphatic, unemotional reminders, which gave way to my “having a talk” with her in private about it, which gave way to my referring to her as a “snot”—something I really don’t want to do within earshot of my kid (who, after all, is a GREAT KID), that’s just a personal decision, as all facets of discipline (and everything else family/parental) have to be. No offense to any other parents, it’s just something I want to try not to do myself. And this is where I need to be more disciplined.

Was I embarrassed? Eh, only a little, but not really. This playgroup is nice, and I’ve felt with these moms from the very recent beginning that no one is judging anyone, and we grant that these phases go around. If Violet is a bruiser today, it might be another kid who’s doing it next week. Also, Vibble is a free-spirited person, somewhat fearless, very exploratory. That’s who she is, so there has to be some space for that.

Mostly I was just out of tricks. My tool arsenal consists of the things described above: reminders, momentary removals from the scene, and in the extreme, the putting-on-the-floor. I think we might need more tools. I’m just not at all sure what they should be. We’re not doing spanking (again, no judgments on parents who go that route, it’s a personal decision). She’s not QUITE ready for time-out; I just can’t see how that would work right now without restraints, which, again, personal decision. Her talking/speech is still coming along, but we’re not able to “converse” about these things after the fact. Asking “Why did you do that?” gets me nowhere. And leaving playgroup or the park early would be all the same to her.

I can handle being patient with a lot of this toddler stuff—I did win the physical brawl in our living room yesterday, out of sheer stamina, over the box of Girl Scout cookies she had somehow managed to procure for herself—but I can’t have her shoving, hitting, kicking, throwing things at innocent little people—people I want her to be liked by, for her own sake. It might be normal. It’s not OK. And this week it has been increasingly aggressive, violent, reactionary.

I want to have a consistent response, after the three or so reminders—because I know toddlers actually do forget to behave. I want it to be something that deters the behavior for the immediate time-being. I am in charge here, thank goodness (“No, Vibble, you may not play in the street, scream and kick on the sidewalk all you want” [I actually said this, Thursday]). (Incidentally, I hold life-threatening behavior apart in the discipline realm; I won’t hesitate to shout loudly or very, VERY firmly and even sort of meanly when it comes to reminders she’s gotten too close to the stove, FEAR THE STOVE, LITTLE GIRL.)

Sigh. Personal decisions. But I want to form a rationale here, I want to be fair and effective. I want her to have friends who don’t drop their pail-and-shovel sets and run away when she steps foot on the playground.

So, advice? Thoughts? Recommended reads? Comment here or reply by e-mail. Meanwhile, consider this:

Thesaurus results for discipline:

1. control, training, teaching, instruction, regulation, direction, order, authority, rule, strictness, a firm hand; routine, regimen, drill, drilling

2. good behavior, orderliness, control, obedience; self-control, self-discipline, self-government, self-restraint

3. field (of study), branch of knowledge, subject, area; specialty.

8 Responses to “Being More Disciplined”

  1. Scrubbed Innocence Says:

    Behavior Modification: What it Is, and How to Do It. Garry Martin & Joseph Pear. One if my psychology textbooks. Probably in its 18th edition by now. Different types of behaviour require different methods of modification. This book has it all, and is founded on evidence (or belief, some may say) that behavior can be successfully shaped using objective methods. Sometimes it seems like the book is teaching you how to manipulate people, or remove their autonomy. That’s one way of looking at it. Another way is that it shows you how to better meet your own survival needs, and how to help others do the same. One of my favorite psych topics. I still refer to that book for everything from marketing to cats.

  2. susan Says:

    on the other end of the spectrum… Between Parent and Child by Haim Ginott.
    Even when you are doing everything “right”, with a toddler, the immediate results aren’t there–meaning, they don’t always smile and say “oh, okay”. At least that’s what I told myself as I watched my two year old tear off her clothes in anger and then throw her naked little body on the floor because “I’M NOT TIRED!!!”

  3. sister Says:

    You could always send her to her Aunt’s house for a little bit of Erica and Dani time. Spending any amount of time with them will cure her of — no wait, it will only make it worse.

    We are still going through the bully phase with Dani. Saturday she kicked a complete stranger (small boy) in the family jewels. If you figure out how to stop Vbl, let me know what you did and I will try it with Dani.

  4. susan Says:

    and
    http://www.isabelagranic.com/bed-timing/discipline/

  5. Groundhog Says:

    It’s never too early to start the three stage warning system. I used to say I was “going to count to three”. I’ve heard other moms say their child’s name in stages – “Ricky, please stop that. Ricky Thompson, I said stop. Richard Lee Thompson, stop right now!” Ricky knows that, when his mom says his whole name like that, he’d better quit or else the next move will be unpleasant for him, because that’s always the pattern. That also gives you a chance to decide what you are going to do if you get to the third warning and the behavior hasn’t stopped. (And don’t ever fail to do something if they defy you and don’t stop by the 3rd warning, or it will never work again.)

    If spanking isn’t your thing, you have to find some other way to stop the behavior or make your point. How about swooping her up and holding her on your lap with your arms wrapped around her so she’s immobile? “If I get to three, you’re going to have to sit on my lap for awhile.” If she’s anything like Dani, she’ll fight like hell, but then calm down and become rational after a little while, so that you can put her down, and she doesn’t repeat the behavior afterwards because she’s had a chance to think about it. Seems more loving than spanking does, and everybody is more comfortable with it (except that sometimes there is a lot of screaming that goes with the fighting like hell). Only problem with it is that it doesn’t work well when you have to be standing up or are walking somewhere.

    Good luck!

  6. Dad Says:

    The Two’s are the two’s for a reason. Vib is developing new cognative skills. She is beginning to add 2 and 2, it does not equal 4 in her mind. She is testing, and in her case very seriously, how deep the waters run.

    First order of business is you and Steve. You must be unted in your position regarding discipline. You must decide what is accepatble (what you can tolerate) and what is not. You have to plan your responce and be consistent in your choice of discipline. I have always felt that positive acclimation for accepatble behavior, re-enforces that type of behavior. A stern and disappointed approach to un-acceptable beahvior eventaully discourages bad behavior. No child wants to disapoint Mommy or Daddy.

    It is no walk in the park. You love your little girl, Lord knows I do. And you want the best for her. But she has to inter-act in our disfunctional society. So best of luck and lots of prayers coming from Atlanta.

  7. sista' Says:

    Look up a basket hold. It was suggested to us when Dani was beating Erica up. It was suggested by a child psychologist as a “humane” way to discipline since spanking doesn’t actually work for every kid.

    Also, we do “brownie points” here at our house. They work well as they get added up over time for good behavior and get taken away for bad behavior and when they get enough points they get to go to GameStop and pick out a DS game. Erica has about 20 games. Dani has 4. Works.

  8. AxsDeny Says:

    This is legal, right? http://bit.ly/bvYM1D

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