Just chatting with DP and a friend tonight hence the late post - it's been something I've been wanting to start a thread on here for ages.
DS is 4 and I find it really difficult to discipline him. I am good at positive reinforcement, I try to model the behaviour/morals/attitudes etc that I want him to pick up and this works well a lot of the time, and I'm good at redirecting/showing him the right way to deal with things, but I'm utterly shit at dealing with him when he's really acting out and pushing boundaries. I can't do punishments at all - even the thought of it, even writing out the word makes me feel really nervous like there's a big knot in my stomach.
I don't even know what it is - I've read up on loads of different things, and the philosophy of UP etc really appeals to me (which is where you avoid "generic" punishments and rewards and try to guide the child in the right way, show them the right way of doing stuff, look for the cause of the behaviour etc, rather than just dealing immediately with the problem and leaving it at that - lots of threads on this if interested) but I don't know if this is just because it skirts around the idea of punishment which I find really awkward/difficult to do. This approach did work well for us, until he got to about 3, and since then he's been running rings around me more and more. I now have a big conflict because I've read so much that says these UP methods work without using a generic kind of punishment or reward (by this I mean things like time out, naughty step, loss of pocket money, screen ban, etc) and the theory etc makes so much sense when I read it, but then in real life I'm struggling because it's not really working for us now. But then the alternatives go against the principles, and I get all confused and stressed out in my head wondering what is the right thing. I wonder if I'm being too black and white too and not seeing that most people manage to strike a balance.
If it's something simple and logical like removing a toy off him which he's about to throw or taking the pens away if he draws on something, I can cope with that easily, because I can see a justification for it - I'm directly preventing him from being able to do that thing. But something like him being rude to me, refusing to do something I ask (when it's a perfectly reasonable request) or even going right away and doing the opposite (which he does quite regularly) or even hitting/kicking, which doesn't happen often but can happen when he gets very wound up, I find hard to deal with. With the rudeness and ignoring then I tend to withdraw attention, but this doesn't work that well - I can tell from what he says sometimes that he literally thinks he's on the same level as me and he has just as much right to tell me what to do as I have to tell him what to do. If he hits/kicks then I can physically restrain him and have resorted to shutting him in his bedroom if I can't do this but I feel this would be a massive overreaction for other things, especially as I feel terribly guilty when I do this. In fact I feel bad when I impose any kind of punishment and always feel a really strong urge to let him earn the thing back or whatever, but this is just undermining myself, isn't it?
Please help me be less of a massive softy DP pointed out today that I'm always quick to excuse DS of bad behaviour, saying it was because he was hungry, tired etc. I have noticed that DS' behaviour is massively affected by his tiredness and hunger levels and so try to accommodate for this, also if I'm feeling run down or tired and am not interacting with him as much as I feel I should/could be, I think it's unfair to punish him for acting up because he's bored for example. But DP feels that I should be doing something to show DS that his behaviour isn't acceptable and not just blaming it on myself all the time. I really don't know who is right here.
The other thing that happens is that when I get really frustrated with DS I tend to shout easily, which I know is not constructive or helpful, and he probably stops listening to what I say when this happens. I wonder if I had more structure, whether it would be easier to control this and not descend into shouting as often.
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I have real problems with discipline, punishment in particular.
18 replies
BertieBotts · 05/01/2013 01:54
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