Faith is certainly getting to the age now where discipline is coming into play. I have given her the " She doesn't understand" excuse for a while now but it has become increasingly clear she understands.
This morning in fact she proved that to me once again.
I unfortunately have created a bad habit with Faith. I have allowed her to snack whenever she wants. I literally mean whenever. I had this feeling of like " well she's hungry so if she wants something ( even though she just had a full breakfast 30 minutes ago) I should let her eat" Well yes you can imagine the chaos that has created. She now constantly runs to the pantry and I open it up for her as she wants one snack after another after another most to end up on the floor or sitting in their snack cup hours later.
I purely blame myself for this one. Its one of those " monsters" I have created by being so lenient with her.
So this weekend I figured what better time to start breaking this habit.
Well this morning Hubby woke up with Faith and she was great! I barely heard a peep out of them and happily slept in until 10am. So I woke up walked out and immediately Faith ran to me than ran to the pantry. Hubby told me she had finished a big bowl of oatmeal about an hour ago so there was no way she was truly hungry. So I told her " No no baby lets get a puzzle" and the tantrum began.
It proved to me that beyond a shadow of a doubt she knew this was a situation where she had my number and she knew it.
After some ignoring she eventually gave in and came over to play with us.
She tried numerous times the rest of the day to go to the pantry and get a snack but with the help of my husband we made it through the day with 3 meal times and 2 planned by Mommy and Daddy snack times. And honestly the day went really well.
Faith was amazing today, with some tough love help from Daddy she used her words instead of yelling and honestly was the perfect little girl today!
I guess it all made me realize just how aware she is and just how much she does understand. I 100% need to be more consistent and more firm with her now that she is getting older. I watch as she behaves so well for her Daddy yet sometimes the second I walk in the room her attitude changes.
Sometimes I always have this fear she will hate me. It's something I struggle with deep inside wondering if one day she will accept us as her real mom and dad. As you can see my lack of discipline with her stems way deeper than getting a snack in the pantry.
I wrote about discipline before HERE and I see how much more I need to put my words into actions.
Thankfully as parents God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He allows for mistakes and allows for learning along the way. I know I have a lot of changing to do within myself to be the best parent I can be and I can only hope and pray that I will do my best all to His glory to make Him proud.
What kind of discipling works for you and your family?
3 comments:
You're about a year ahead of me. I was working before we came out here and didn't realize the bad habits I had created until I was home 24/7. So good for you working on it now.
We had the same thing with Isabel and eating. Tackled it last summer and we still have days where she'll ask nonstop for food. Made me wonder if her attitude was related to low blood sugar or something so we started feeding her everytime she asked. Not real sure what we decided but our budget can't handle all the snacks. :-)
At her age distracting is your best defense. Isabel is also the same way as Winni where she's always better behaved for Dave then me, I think it's because they see their daddy's less and we're home with them.
Spanking works big time with Isbael, but we can't spank (CPS rules). But before we were too far in to classes we started tackling her worst problem, attitude, with spanking. But that still didn't get rid of her attitude. So then I went to time out every time she showed attitude. That was a hard few days (actually going to blog on this soon myself). And it got way worse before it started to get better. She doesn't seem to really see timeout as a punishment which baffles me.
I'll tell you what has really worked lately for us but I'm not sure Winni is old enough for you to figure this one out. I learned Isabel's love language, it's quality time. And I realized that I wasn't filling her love tank with her love language. If I work hard at filling her love tank she's a different girl and even sleeps better.
Oh wow, I think I'll be a lot like you, so it's good to read what I can look forward to:). I have to say, I am going through a similar thing with sleep training right now with my 5.5 month old. He is stubborn:). But, like you, I have created chaos in our days by allowing so much with him. I mean, he is just an infant, so I know it's a little different, but I hear the same themes of being a mommy and knowing you have to tighten the ship a little:). Good for you! Hey, if you have any advice on sleep training, come on over and comment for me please! I am NOT going to try to comment on discipline for you because I'm not there yet and therefore can't act like I have a clue...lol!
totally recommend reading and/or finding a class/book on positive discipline. seriously changing the way i look at discipline
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