i recently saw a frends status post smack or not to smack.. this was my answer so i thought id share with you also. Smacking is such an outdated form of discipline. In fact it’s illegal to smack with an external implement and it can only be with an open hand anywhere on the body but the face. So the wooden spoon is a huge no-no… unless you want to lose your kids to social services. It also teaches your kids to accept physical abuse and is sending them a huge mixed message of “I love you, but I’m going to hurt you now”. By smacking you are suppressing a natural instinct to survive. If you were hit would you want to hit back? Hell yeah, because it’s only self-defence. It says, it’s ok for me to hit you, but you can’t hit others because it’s not nice. Does that mean you’re not a nice mum? Look, I was smacked as a kid by both hand and the wooden spoon and I don’t remember much about that... maybe it was so traumatic I’ve forgotten or maybe it was fine. But I turned out ok. It’s so hard to reason with a child, but by doing so you are teaching your children vital life skills. With Hayden I use timing as a limitation. EG: If Hayden (my son) wants to play with all his toys around the house and makes a mess and I’ve asked him to clean it up and he fails to do so I say “I see you are having difficulty cleaning your toys up. I can give you 10mins to clean everything up properly, so when my phone alarm goes off and you aren’t finished I can help you, but next time you want to play with your toys, you can only play with one at a time in your play room”. The important part is to follow through with what you say and with consistency. There is no point saying “clean up your toys” and they find the job overwhelming then smacking them because they found it hard. It’s shattering for their self-esteem. Punishments have to be directly related to their crime. If Hayden is rude to me or is disrespectful in his speech then I ban him from playing with his friends because if he is rude to me, what makes me think he’ll be polite with his friends... And I tell him that. This works amazingly well with Hayden and I don’t really have an issue anymore. He communicates well and we get to the root of the problem quickly. Most of Hayden’s issues with eating dinner for e.g. was because he didn’t like being by himself. Like at Bella’s nap time after lunch. He felt lonely whilst I was getting her to sleep. So now he will lay down with us, and as long as he doesn’t fidget or make noise, he is allowed. Often he has a nap too. If things get really bad, we have a time out corner with numbers and alphabet. So depending on the severity he has to sit there until he calms down, thinks about why he is in the corner (I tell him beforehand why, but he needs time to process it too) and then do his abc’s and count to 30 or 40 or 50, depending, then come back and we chat about the right way of doing things. He is slowly learning that getting into a rage only makes you feel worse and solves nothing. And that talking about why he is angry solves his issues faster. We also have tickle torture. So if he is just being infuriating and stubborn, I ask him to... lets say put something in the bin, and he flat out refuses. I tickle him until he submits. It changes the mood amazingly. I get want I want and everyone is happy in the end. Andrew’s (my husband) mum did this to Andrew and she suggested it to me when Hayden was going through a horrid stage. I thought it wouldn’t work, but it does. If fact, he came up to me and said “mum, am I in trouble?” I say “no”, Hayden replies “are you sure?” all because he wanted to tickle fight. It’s at first tiring to stay calm (my first week with positive parenting was killer) but you have to remember that monkey see, monkey do. I also suggest getting these two books, they will be a huge insight to how our kids work from a medical side of things. Healthy Sleeping habits, Happy child. (Lack of sleep is a huge contributor to naughty behaviour and can also drop your IQ by a whole 2 GRADES!!!) Raising Boys
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:11:28 +0000
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