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Help, advice, Please?



 
 
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  #11  
Old July 12th 03, 09:56 PM
Catherine Woodgold
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Default Help, advice, Please?

"C. Gregory" ) writes:
also, biting is a big issue from time to time, and that one really bothers
me, because he bites my roommates child occasionally (he wont bite for
weeks, then suddenly he's a biting fool.)


Here's a post from a long time ago that I think is a
really good answer to this:

Alicia said:
Subject: Biting child

I can give you my ideas without spanking, yelling or biting back. We
had the same problem with our daughter. She didn't seem she wanted to
hurt; she was just testing out the new chompers. She would bite me
alot around 11 to 12 months of age. If she bited me I would make a
really sad face put her down or stop playing with her and walk to my
room or to the couch and cover my face in my hands like I was crying.
I would say OUCH really firmly while I was doing this. If my husband
was around he would add to the act by saying "Are you okay?, Are you
Sad?, Are you hurt? Then he would come over to comfort me not really
addressing the child in correction or anything instead he would
comfort me the same way he would comfort her if she was hurt.
Understand of course my daughter would watch this and sometime would
cry like she should have been hurt. We made a point to not give her
the direct attention but redirect her attention to the hurt parent.
After awhile she wanted to comfort the bitten parent too. My daughter
after a couple times of this drama would pick up that it made mommy
sad and daddy sad. She hasn't done it since.

This worked for us.
Alicia


--
Cathy
  #12  
Old July 12th 03, 10:29 PM
Catherine Woodgold
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Default Help, advice, Please?

"C. Gregory" ) writes:
as far as the rest, i am making a concerted effort not to spank him, and it
made me realise that i was doing it out of frustration, which is dangerous,


I think it's really great that you've realized this.

Some parents spank as part of a planned system. For example,
in one family, the kids would get a certain number of points
for not doing their chores, etc., and when they got up
to a certain number, they would get a spanking. In those
cases the decision to spank has nothing to do with the
parent's emotional state. (But if you're going to
have a system like that, why not just design a system
that doesn't use spanking?)

But in many families (and I believe in most families
that spank), spanking is a reflection mainly of the
way the parent feels. I think most of these people don't
realize this: they think they're using a system,
but in fact they don't have a system that can be
objectively described; it's more like "when the
kid does something that goes too far, I spank them."
Whether it "goes too far" or not depends largely
on how the parent is feeling at the time, as well
as partly on what the child did. Often parents
will have a build-up of frustration from several
misbehaviours in a row -- or their frustration can
be partly from things that have nothing to do with
the child.

But it's really great that you recognize what was
going on inside you at the moment you decided
to spank.

One-year-olds can do a lot of damage very quickly
(such as pulling all the books off three more
bookshelves in the time it takes you to put
the books back onto the first one).
It can be really hard keeping up with them.
Frustration is one feeling that can easily come
up. But there are other ways to express your
frustration.

One way is to tell yourself "I am going to come
up with a Plan for handling situations like this!"
and then when you have some quiet time, think
up a plan for what you will do whenever your
child does that. (For a lot of things, you can
make up a Plan before the child even does it
the first time, but if you're frustrated, it's
probably because the child is doing something
you hadn't thought of a way to handle.)
Just the decision "I am going to come up with
a Plan!" can give you a feeling that in a sense
you're in control.

There are other ways to handle frustration,
like walking out of the room. Or telling your
child "I'm frustrated!"

You're right that it's dangerous to spank
out of frustration. Here are some quotes
from "Beating the Devil Out Of Them: Corporal
Punishment in American Families ..." by
Murray Straus:

[p. 85] "Clinical work with abusive families
has shown that much physical abuse starts as an
attempt to correct and control through corporal
punishment. When the child does not comply or,
in the case of older children, hits back and
curses the parent, the resulting frustration and
rage leads some parents to increase the severity
of the physical attack and kick, punch or hit
with an object. ..."


[p. 86, quoting a parent] "It all started when
Camille [age 14] slammed the door on her little
sister's leg. Camille was in the bathroom and
realized there was no toilet tissue. She asked
her little sister, the 9 year old, to get some
tissue, which she did do, and apparently her sister
wasn't rushing out of the bathroom fast enough
and Camille kind of pushed the door, and in the
process, she caughter her sister's leg in the door,
and with the child screaming as she did from the
pain, it got me very angered ... And I think at
that moment I lost control completely, and I went
over and I swatted Camille with my -- you know,
my hand, and Camille turned around and she swung
back to strike me, which she did do and that got me
even more aggravated. And before I know what really
was going on, I had pounded Camille several times.
She had run a tub of bath water to take a bath,
and suddenly I realized I had knocked Camille
into the bathtub. And apparently I had struck
her in the face, which by no means was intentional.
But she had a swollen eye, and she didn't say
anything to me that night."


--
Cathy
  #13  
Old July 15th 03, 03:30 AM
Catherine Woodgold
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Default Help, advice, Please?

Catherine Woodgold ) writes:
However, if he were to get into a new routine of longer sleeps
every night and no nap, then perhaps after a couple of days of
settling into the routine, he might do better. Unfortunately
I don't know how to predict this without trying it -- which
might involve a lot of problems. It would be a leap of faith.

I suppose he's at some stage of shifting from needing a nap
to not needing a nap. I think a kid can be at a transition
phase: too old to take naps, but not quite old enough
to get along without the naps. Needing half a nap.
It can be a difficult stage. Some parents get through
this by waking them up after a short nap.


I apologize. I wrote that when I mistakenly thought I
had read that your son was 3 years old. Actually he's
almost 2. I doubt at his age that he would be ready
to give up a daily nap without problems (though I think
some kids do).

I have heard of children who refused to take naps
after being weaned, and were cranky. It can be
a difficult problem with ways of coping but no
easy answers. There are ways to get children to
sleep without breastfeeding, but they tend to
be a lot more difficult to put into practice.
--
Cathy
  #14  
Old July 18th 03, 06:49 AM
Kane
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Default Help, advice, Please?

"Whimsical" wrote in message ...
"Catherine Woodgold" wrote in message
...
"C. Gregory" ) writes:
as far as the rest, i am making a concerted effort not to spank him, and it
made me realise that i was doing it out of frustration, which is dangerous,


I think it's really great that you've realized this.


I realised this too!
When my son was five I thought spanking was the answer to all my prayers.

At first a sharp slap on the back of my son's leg was enough to make
him behave, fair enough you might say, no damage done.
However it soon turned more routine, as you say the frustration took over
and I was smacking him more and more until he was getting smacked
practically every day.


This is a very common progression and with good reason based on actual
human developmental phenomena.

And the sad thing was, he was getting used to it. What initially took one
smack to stop escalated into me having smack him 2 then 4 then 6 then
10 times in order to get the same effect.


I'll comment later and offer a referrance.

His behaviour didn't actually improve, I just had to cause him more pain
in order to stop him. Sounds pretty horrible now, come to think of it.


If it's what you know then it's the best and most responsible
parenting you can do. It's only those that continue after they know
there are other methods that need to question themselves more
carefully.

Smacking became the first option rather than the last. I shudder to think
just how many times I hit him.
What made me stop was when I found out he'd bullied another child and
I really laid into him. I had smacked his legs so hard they were practically
purple. I vowed that I never wanted to do that to him again.
My son is now 13 and since that day I have never laid a finger on him.
He is well behaved and responds to non-spanking methods of discipline.


Watch the pro spank crowd try to claim that that is either a lie, or a
single anomylous occurance, rare and not possibly generalized to the
population...of course they are dead wrong. I've seen the same
sequence of events with the same outcome again and again with parents
who spanked and thought better of it.

The moral of the story is, spanking is a quick fix, but never works in
the long run!


I can though appear to work...and there's the rub.

Forgive my presumption, as it's rather apparent you have worked this
through and well at that, but two things. I hope you've forgiven
yourself if that was a question, and may I recommend a book?

Smart Love, by the Piepers, husband and wife, therapists, and foster
and adoptive and natural parents...well seasoned folks.

They make the point that supports the progress of more and more
spanking being required that you relate....the child believes their
beloved parent parents them exactly as they deserve and will help get
more of it, be it love and tenderness, or harsh pain and punishment.

And the offer very simple but effective ways of teaching one's child
without having to resort to punishment. Based of course on their
premise I mention above.

Thank you for your candidness. This kind of transparent communication
about this subject is extremely important.

I know a lot of folks questioning spanking come here only to find
themselves savaged by the pro spank crowd, and they leave or simply
watch the rancorous exchanges and are unable to find what they wish,
or find it and leave, with it being the wrong thing some of the time.

I encourage any that are lurking to go ahead and take the risk you did
and engage. There are plenty of folks here that will point you to good
information on the subject, and will not call you a liar or make fun
of you.

Best wishes, to you and to your precious child.

You have a lot of good company.

Kane
  #15  
Old July 18th 03, 07:28 PM
Whimsical
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Default Help, advice, Please?


"Kane" wrote in message
om...
"Whimsical" wrote in message

...

The moral of the story is, spanking is a quick fix, but never works in
the long run!


I can though appear to work...and there's the rub.

Forgive my presumption, as it's rather apparent you have worked this
through and well at that, but two things. I hope you've forgiven
yourself if that was a question, and may I recommend a book?


Yeah, I have forgiven myself. It was some years ago now and I was
going through a bad patch at the time. Not that that excuses taking it
out on a small child of course.

Smart Love, by the Piepers, husband and wife, therapists, and foster
and adoptive and natural parents...well seasoned folks.


Thanks for the reference....

They make the point that supports the progress of more and more
spanking being required that you relate....the child believes their
beloved parent parents them exactly as they deserve and will help get
more of it, be it love and tenderness, or harsh pain and punishment.


I can relate to that.
When my my son was five he got little else out of me but pain.
Now I wouldn't say I ever gave him a real thrashing, but on a couple
of ocaisions I guess I came close.
When I came home from work hewould be waiting for me, knowing
that a smacking would result from whatever misdemeanors his
Mum reported to me. Not surprisingly after a while he feared the
return of his own Dad! Things got into a routine, come home, smack
back of son's legs, have tea. Day after day after day.......
Anyway, luckily it doesn't seem to have done him any harm. Kids are
perhaps more robust than we think, perhaps?
He's certainly never mentioned the spankings to me in later years.



 




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