We’ve been through two full days now of not using punishments and overall I am much happier. It’s feels good not to be constantly threatening M with the punishment she will get if her actions don’t change Instead, like Melissa said, I’m being creative about finding ways to do steer us in a better direction and actually enjoying the strategizing. Here’s the quote from Melissa’s parenting thread:
When we’ve hit bumps (conflicts between kids, mostly), I haven’t felt annoyed or frustrated. It’s almost like a game, a challenge I present myself: how can I steer us through this rocky place without losing my cool? I have found myself waking up every day eager for the challenge. I’m dead serious here. This really is big stuff.
She’s speaking specfically here about giving up nagging and scolding but I’ve noticed that speaking more gently has gone hand in hand with not punishing. Since I’m not thinking from a punishing, scolding mindset, I don’t have as strong a tendency to become the yelling mom I don’t want to be.
The times I’ve really had to bite my tongue when a threat of punishment was about to spring forth have been at bedtime and afternoon quiet time. I am a firm believer in bedtime because I see the effect that the right amount vs too little sleep have on both M and C. I value the time I have with my husband in the evening and I do need a break from being with the girls. M has quiet time in her room for 45 minutes – 1 hour while C takes her afternoon nap. She can bascially do anything she wants as long as she stays in her room. I use this time to catch up on household work, prep dinner, or write.
When M slips out of her room over and over when she’s supposed to be in bed or playing on her own, my frustration levels sky rocket because those times of quiet help me rebuild my own sanity. I found myself literally pressing my lips together to stop myself from telling her she would lose the privilege of playing with her ponies the next day (these are her favorite toys) if she didn’t go back to bed. But so far, she hasn’t come out any more often when I don’t punish her so I don’t think the punishment was having much effect. It only serves to upset us both.
Yesterday, M and C were riding in the double stroller as we walked to do some errands and M kept putting her sunglasses on C. I asked her to stop and told her that she could either wear her glasses or put them beside her away from her sister or I would have to put them in the stroller basket. I immediately realized I’d told her I would take something away and thought “is this a punishment?” After thinking it over and talking to my husband I decided that it wasn’t. I spoke calmly and I allowed her to make a choice with her actions. If I’d taken the glasses away, I would have been protecting the baby not punishing M.
I’m reading How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk and the authors define punishment as “the parent deliberately depriving a child for a set period of time or inflicting pain upon him in order to teach that child a lesson” and that it differs from natural consequences. I think taking something away because a child is misusing it falls under natural consequences rather than this definition of punishment.
