ok here is the situation.... Aiden refuses to listen to me when i tell him no very sternly or when i count to three ( one, get over here please, two come here, three. then if he doesnt do as i asked i go over and tap his little butt and explain to him why he is being punished) so lately i have been just putting him on time outs and explain to him what he did that was dangerous or naughty. but as i put aiden for a time out or discipline him shane undermines my authority and picks aiden up and comforts him and refuses to let me put aiden on a timeout. I want to give aiden the freedom of running around the house while i am relaxing and reading a book i want him to explore everything that he posibly can but shane yells at me if i do and aiden could pick something up a choke I just want to know what are other ways of getting aiden to listen to me and how can i get shane to respect my authority?
time outs are the best. you need to explain to your man. HE'S the problem, not your little man. dave and i have had to discuss this several times. being on the same page is important.
I agree with your husband. Some children do not respond well to authoritarian parenting, and unrelated consequences/punishments. With these kids, you have to find a common preference. You can't just tell them what to do and expect them to do it, that will never work with some children (works great with other kids, though). Try reading some books like, "How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk" and "Raising Your Spirited Child" and "The Explosive Child" (even if your baby is not "spirited" or "explosive" those books are full of great information!). It's not about letting the child always get his way, and it's not about the parent always getting their way. There is a middle ground, where both parties work together to find a solution to any situation where nobody feels as though their wants have been ignored. But it involves really listening to what your kid wants, and being able to define exactly what it is that you want, and why. If you want your kid to do something just because you are the boss or because that's what your parents always wanted from you, it's not a good enough reason. You have to be able to explain to your child why it's so important to you that he do whatever it is that you want him to do. And you have to be patient enough to listen to your child figure out why it is he doesn't want to do it. AND, most importantly, you both have to work together to figure out a way that you can both get what you want. And look at food allergies, too. Immediately after eating sugar or gluten/wheat, my oldest child cannot listen to anything I say. I have to touch her and get her attention, get right up in her face, and speak very slowly. But this doesn't happen at all when we haven't let the diet slip lately.
re-reading the OP, if baby can pick something up and choke, that says to me that you need to babyproof your home a little better. We babyproofed only one room in our house, the den, (a very big room, granted) and then put a baby gate up between it and the kitchen, so even if I were cooking, we were all basically in the same room. Yelling at the kid not to pick something up that shouldn't be in his reach in the first place is no way to handle that sort of situation. It wasn't his fault, he shouldn't be in time out for it.
Without knowing how old the child is, IF Accidents are a possibility, remove those chances. (Childproofing) Otherwise, I'm with you. They can't learn that you mean what you say unless you can BACK IT UP! In a two parent home, that means both Teamwork, AND Understanding. Mine are grown now, but Removal Of Priveliges(sp) worked well.
ooo, i wouldn't tap a butt or call my child naughty how old is he? there are far better ways to dicipline.
I have found that children this age just don't respond all that well to ONLY "explaining" stuff. It is better, IMO, to just say, "We don't play in the garbage.It's dirty." and if it has been more than the second warning in a few hours, right into time out. A child should start time outs at about 30 seconds to a minute working up to no more than a minute per age. (A two year old would get two minutes, a there year old three minutes ect.) I set a timer so they can see. If the child gets up during time out, sorry, we start the timer again. I don't think it took more than half a dozen time outs for most of my kids. Nobody wants to sit in a chair waiting for the dinger to go off. But, it doesn't harm the child, and works, at least for my kids, better than simply explaining stuff. Yeah, I often talk to them about why they did something, but in the heat of the moment, your kid (and probably you) are too wound up for it to really sink in. At least this is my experience. I have FIERY kids, and perhaps calmer kids would respond better to How to Talk strategies. Maybe "How to talk" works for some people, but not my kids. When I tried it I got blank stares and "Yeah, I just SAID that." ("Oh, you must be very angry you aren't allowed to play in the garbage.") Followed by simply doing what they were doing before I did all that "explaining." All my kids told me later that it "insulted their intellegence (well I didn't bother with Sage, as it was such a dreadful failure with the other kids.) It may work for some, but I have horrible memories, of a "How to talk" motrher in our LLL group, as her 3 year old was whacking a newborn baby in the head with a baseball bat "calmly" saying, "Now, Tristen, I know you may be angry at the baby, and I know you really like that baseball bat, but how would it feel if someone would hit you in the head with a bat? Wouldn't that hurt yoru feelings?" (while Tristen is bashing the kid's scull in.) Uh, no, it was going to give the newborn brain damage if it went on any longer. TAKE AWAY THE FREAKING BAT! The mother of this newborn never came back to a meeting, and left crying. Thing was, this womyn caused a LOT of people not to come back to meetings. She explained and explained things to her kids, but they never stopped doing ANY of the stuff she tried to make them "think about." In my dh's explaination, "Toddler and little kids don't usually know WHY they do things. Stop the dangerous behavior, don't talk about it for an hour and bore the kid to death. The boring "explainitions" are worse than a time out. And they don't work." I know that this type or parenting works sometimes for some kids, but not always for all kids. I prefer to not take all day to explain something. A tot with a knife headed for the electrical socket requies the knife to be taken away and a loud "NO!" (This gets the kid's attention before she electrocutes herself.) Playing in the garbage requires immediate removal of the child from the garbage, time out, if it happens again, and a plan to maybe put the garbage somewhere else. (My kids did these things.) Hitting a child with a baseball bat requires immediate, permanent removal of the baseball bat, and immediate removal of the offending child. Some things just don't need explainations.
the whole point of collaborative problem solving (common preference finding, it's called lots of different things by different people) is not what you do in the heat of the moment, it's about talking about it when the problem is not an immediate issue. I'm not disagreeing with any of Maggie's points, they are very good ones, and things many people mistakenly believe is what non-coercive parenting is all about. But that mother in her example is missing the point. The main idea is prevention of those situations, before they happen. And yes, the philosophy is very heavy on theory and lacking in real answers about what to do when situations actually arise... I'll admit that. But I also believe that time outs and punishments only teach the child to be afraid of the consequences, not why they shouldn't do certain things. That's why you have to talk with your children when it's not an issue so everyone can come up with a plan for what to do when it is an issue. these are all situations that could have been prevented from happening in the first place, by perceptive parents. If I know that eating a cupcake is going to cause my daughter to go into a rage, the best plan of attack is not to put her in time out when it happens, but to discourage her from having that cupcake in the first place. Flat-out denying her the problem-causing foods doesn't work, I have to explain to her over and over and over again why it is that I don't want her to eat them. And then, when she starts feeling the effects of having eaten something she shouldn't have, I point it out to her why she feels that way, so the lesson sinks in.
Hmm I guess that makes sense, but parents are not psychic, don't have super honed senses to notice everything their kids do etc. So you cannot prevent every possible bad thing from happening to your child/ren. Nor should you, ultimatly. The world is not a utopia so children need to learn right from wrong, and then how to deal with it. Even with perceptive parenting you still have to figure out the problem issues in the first place and coping strategies. So that's not entirely flawless. When I was small (back in the day) my parents spent a lot of time going over and over simple rules. 'Sage don't touch the ornaments' was a common theme [yeah there was butt swatting involved, it was '80s, you do the best you know how to]. I was a good kid but it still took time because toddlers don't generally have the understanding to think through their impulses. They want it they reach for it. Still they persevered and eventually could take me places and there be no need to 'baby proof' because I knew exactly what 'no' meant and that it would be followed through. It might be good to do a three strikes kind of thing, ie ... 1) no, don't do that 2) if you do that again you'll get time-out 3) time out, then an explanation Then maybe it'll help him understand the consequences and a chance to change his actions before it gets that bad. (Have seen this to be effective in parenting shows and such, good for all ages too as a general principle) Whatever methods you use consitency from both parents is really important. If your SO is going to undermine everything then why bother? (you should of course, but totally see how frustrating and counter productive it is). Perhaps you should talk to him about what he sees as the best way to handle things, then reach some agreement.
then there are those small children who have complete meltdowns and try to tear your eyes out. *sigh*
I agree that "How to talk" techniques can work for many people. But, the knife in the socket incident actually happened to us. (Well, it was prevented with a loud NO and then taking the knife.) Moon was a FAST toddler! Did your kids never get hurt? Fall down? ect. Kids can be unbeleivably quick, sometimes. I have good instincts, but you know, with a house full of kids, you can't always know what every kid is thinking every minute. I know that. BUT, the mother in this example didn't know this. She, as well as those watching her, thought this was the way to do it. And because she read the book, went to a Conference session on it and implemented the techiques, she assumed that this was the way it was supposed to go. She never wanted her children to harm anyone, she just thought that"mirroring" and "explaining" ect was all she needed to do. While her son was bashing in the brains of a newborn. I've been in LLL for 20 years. A lot of LL moms use "How to talk." I've seen people who implement "how to talk" techniques well, and many who do exactly like this mother did, and think they are doing well! When I was a Psychology student we called this type of therapy "Uh Huh" therapy (supplemented by "How do you feel about that?") where the therapist does little, but to "mirror" back what the patient said to you. Never my favorite theraputic tecnique, which was probably one of the reasons I recognized it, and wasn't crazy about it, when I saw it diluted by the "How to talk" authors. I am not saying it never works, but, not for all kid/parent dyads in all situations. Yes, of course, often, things should be explained to children.I explain thing to my kids every day. But, in some situations, a NO, is just an immediate NO. Explainations are for when no one's life or health is at stake.
kids should learn by example; thte house should be baby proof and be taught that if the stove is hot it can hurt interact with the child and know that the block is there so the child doesn't choke. omo PG
i read everyones thoughts and opinions and i appreciate them all and in most all of them i have read baby proofing and i have baby proofed this place as much as i could. hell my fiancee built a floor in our sunkin in living room so that aiden wont hurt himself. aiden has gotten so damn smart that he will push over the gate that we have for him and run amok. shane and i have used no so much that it does nothing to aiden anymore he just wont listen. our floors are tile and it's dificult to sweep and mop everyday so that aiden wont pick some random piece of trash up and put it in his mouth i do as much as i can but it just seems that its not enough.
weeelllll.... I offered that one book as an example, but the other two are better. especially with a very strong willed child who doesn't respond to authoritarian parenting. I think we agree, Maggie, it's our words (or my lack of eloquence) that is letting us down. I also recognized that "uh huh, tell me what you think" brand of psychology for what it is, but as long as I don't talk down to my kids or underestimate their intelligence, that approach works much better than my husband's approach of barking out orders, expecting them to be immediately obeyed, just because he's Dad. That book was easier for him to read than The Explosive Child, which was much more help to me in how to approach my oldest child's behavior issues (which went far beyond what "normal" kids dish out to their parents). Fallen Fairy, if it won't choke him or poison him, let him put it in his mouth. If the fall won't break his head open, let him get some bumps and bruises. Save "NO!" for when it really matters, then it means something. Time outs can work, or they can be just another way of teaching your child to never question the authority of an adult, or they can totally backfire on you and make things much worse. When we use time outs, it's not for punishment and it's not for any set amount of time. We use them as a chance to calm down, breathe, and think about things before we lose our cool. Even Mommy gets time outs sometimes when I need to step back and chill out. As soon as we calm down, we can come back out and discuss the situation and work together to figure out what to do about it. But before we figured out the food allergies/intolerances, talking was impossible, and discipline was meaningless. This is what works, the only thing that works, for us. I'm not going to presume that it would work for anyone else, I know we're not quite like regular people.
