My “Secret Subject” is: If you could change one form of discipline you practiced when your kids were very young, what would it be?
It was submitted by: https://batteredhope.blogspot.com
So, if you are my friend on Facebook, you know that I have recently been struggling with this very thing. It is hard to discipline Gigi. It is hard, because she is a complex girl. I love her for it. It also frustrates me. She is so very sensitive, and yet so very stubborn. I cannot imagine where she gets that from. So, it just makes successfully disciplining her hard. Then again, that is just part of being a parent eh? Having difficulties, and having to up your parenting game.
If I discipline her, and it hurts her, that in turn hurts me. Plus, it really ends the success of the discipline. If she is not phased by it, it is another failure. I am struggling to find a method that works well. I struggled when she was younger too. I wish I could go back and change my method. I used time out often, and I don't know if it necessarily worked, but at least I got some mini breaks, so I could just breathe.
My biggest issue lately, is yelling. I hate to yell. I hate to be yelled at. I hate to be around yelling. Well, it seems that these days, many times, they only way I am listened to, is when I yell. It gets attention, and they suddenly seem to be able to listen to me. I have been struggling with it for a while, but it did not become a huge problem until recently. Between my grief and my frustration from yelling, I was really feeling down about my parenting.
As you will learn in a post next week, I am working on making some changes in my parenting. I am particularly working on discipline and yelling. So, I wish I could go back and put more focus on effective discipline, when Gigi was younger, and maybe make time out be more productive. I would love to have time out still work as a discipline option.
So, this subject really spoke to me. I am working on improving communication with Gigi, discipline, and working on not yelling. I am doing well on the yelling front. Yay! We are also increasing her responsibilities. Lots of changes here. Luckily, she loves helping out, so some of the changes are going smoothly.
What about you? Anything you would change about your discipline techniques? Any advice? Man, parenting is way harder than I ever even imagined. Of course, it also so much more rewarding than I knew it would be.
Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a drink, and check them all out. I will see you there!
Looking back on parenting is a double edged sword. It helps us to see what did or didn't work with more perspective, but it also can erode our confidence.
ReplyDeleteAs a parent, you do the best you can on any given day. As long as they know they are loved, day in, day out, well sometimes that's all any of us need.
ReplyDeleteAs a Human Resources Person I have learned some Coaching Techniques that I tried on little Colin sometimes. One that worked was to do something out of (my) character and irritate the heck out of him. I did it when he JUST wouldn't stay in his bed for a nap, not even do quiet time in his room. I told him to go put on shoes, we were going to go for a ride. We drove to our state's psychiatric clinic (on the way he promptly fell asleep, haha, I won!) I showed hin around and explained this was a place exhausted Moms end up and asked him if he was gonna visit me on the weekends if that happened. He was impressed and claimed he did not want me to go away and he'll try and do quiet time ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe thing that has worked for me more than anything when Evan was younger and especially now is talking to him and treating him like an equal. I explain the short term and long term consequences of his behavior, and I'm really honest about how it affects me and makes others' feel period. I explain how his behavior, if continued, could manifest as an adult and how it could impact him. I combine that with point based systems for encouraging chores (accumulate points, earn a reward) and positive reinforcement when he does what I want and it works (for us) way better than punishment.
ReplyDelete