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#11
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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