It’s a Magic Number

Three is a fun age, isn't it? Let's hear it for three. My daughter (an adorable three-year-old) demanded milk this morning. There was no please, no pleasant voice, no question, simply a demand. This might be my most loathed childhood action. I realize that making demands is at the very heart of gaining autonomy but it is the lack of respect that I cannot tolerate. Doesn't, Mommy, can I please have some milk? mean the same thing as, Get me some more milk!? I have zero tolerance for the latter, regardless of whether the child saying it shares my DNA. When my own children make demands such as these I usually respond by refusing to respond. This doesn't always go well. Here's what happened this morning:

Precious Three-Year-Old Daughter: (in a demanding voice) Get me some MILK!

Me: No response

PTYOD: (in a slightly louder demanding voice): Get me some milk Mommy!

Me: No response

PTYOD: (in a loud, shrill, almost unbearable voice): Mommy! Get me some milk! I want milk! Mommy!

Me: No response

PTYOD: (doing her best impression of Axle Rose during that awful scream at the opening of "Welcome to the Jungle"): GET ME SOME MILK! I WANT MORE MILK!

Me: (quiet, calm) I don't respond to requests like that

PTYOD: Mommy, can I please have some more milk?

Me: Sure. I'll get you some

This strategy, although rough on the ol' ear drums, eventually gets me the response I want with my own kids. I don't really feel comfortable using this strategy for kids that are not mine. How do I go about handling these pesky demands in other people's children? Do I ignore them? Submit to their requests? Threaten them with physical violence? What do you do?

Pajama Boy

What do you do when a pajama-clad kid is trying to bite your
son? I had to figure that question out quickly yesterday. I noticed the kid in
question immediately when he walked into the play area yesterday. He was wearing
a camo shirt that was clearly a pajama shirt, probably left over from the night
before. His pants were camo as well, a different print but, I’m happy to
report, not pajamas. His hair was disheveled and he looked like a force to be
reckoned with. I made a mental note of him, sensing trouble, and went back to
chatting with my friends.

About an hour and a half later I noticed an altercation between
my son and pajama boy. My son’s arms were flailing wildly and he had a look of disbelief
on his face. Pajama boy was inches away
from my son’s arm with his teeth bared, ready to strike. I ran towards my son,
screaming at him to stop fighting, hoping that my pleas would be met with obedience
and PB’s teeth would not actually break my son’s skin. I watched my son in what
felt like slow motion thinking, “I really need to get that kid in karate or tae
kwon do.”

I got to my son’s aid just in time. He was crying but very
angry and ready to pound that kid into the ground with whatever spazmatron
ninja moves he could muster. I glared at pajama boy and told him to keep his
hands and his teeth away from my child. I considered confronting his mother but
decided against it, reasoning I might
need some karate lessons to engage in a confrontation with the mother of a boy
in pajamas at 12:30 in the afternoon. I decided that my glare and harsh words
were probably enough to stave off another attack.

So it appears that I am that
mom, the one that handles confrontations with the kids instead of the Mom. It’s
much easier to intimidate someone who’s less than 3 feet tall than an actual
adult. This will all change, of course, when I earn my black belt.

Poverty Schmoverty

Maybe I'll write a book on entitlement issues.  I'll go on a self-righteous rampage about my own strategy to
avoid passing on my entitlement issues and those of our Paris Hilton
obsessed youth population to my children.  I'll turn my nose up at the Mom who buys her
kid a $5 toy to quell his crying in Wal-Mart. I'll pass silent judgment tinged with envy on the Mom strutting through the
mall with her $800 stroller, dressed in couture.  Then I'll tell you about how my son cried today as we were leaving
Zoo Camp because I told him that we could not afford to buy a boat.

My entitlement-issue-avoidance strategy does not appear to be working. Actually, my strategy is more of a
pretentious soapbox that I stand on when I discuss entitlement with
others. It has no basis in reality. I rub my own ego with orations (sometimes
real, sometimes daydream debates with popular public figures) about the culture
of instant gratification and blatant materialism that plagues the youth of
America. The righteous indignation
billows out of me like smoke from a smoke stack but it has no foundation. My children have not yet started school and
they already have entitlement issues.

Exhibit A:  My son
had a conniption fit in the parking lot at Zoo camp because I had the audacity
to deny his request that our family purchase a boat.

Exhibit B: My son is
four years old and I paid $85 to send him to Zoo Camp.

Exhibit C:  My
two-year-old daughter immediately jumped on the boat bandwagon, yelling “Boat!”
at the top of her lungs in a demanding voice continually on the drive home from
Zoo Camp.

I’m no idiot. I wear
my semi-transparent cloak of righteous indignation but I know where my
children’s entitlement issues stem from. They have almost no contact with the poor. As far as they know, everyone in the world lives in their own
home, has plenty of food to eat and gets to go on vacations a couple of times a
year. My son saw a homeless man once,
standing at an intersection with a sign requesting help and he asked me about
him. I tried to explain the concept of
poverty and homelessness to him but it was not something he could wrap his head
around and I dropped it fairly quickly.

My maternal instincts tell me to shelter my children from
the realities of society. I want to
cushion their lives and make sure that all of their needs and most of their
wants are met. But is this a
reasonable strategy? Do I really have
their best interests at heart? These
are questions that I plan to ponder as I begin my new mission: make friends with some poor folks to give my
children perspective. Wish me luck!

Black and White Stripes

Female referees are hard to find in the world of
professional sports. They seem
virtually non-existent. This is
unfortunate, as it seems to be a role that females in general and mothers in
particular were born to play. I have
learned this lesson the hard way in the past two months as I have adjusted to
my new role. I tend to be a solid
color, peace-lovin’ kind of girl so it has taken me a while to get used to my
new black and white striped uniform. I
do not wear it well and would most definitely get canned at Lady Footlocker if
I ever had the desire to sell overpriced tennis shoes and sportswear to young
female athletes.

My children fight all of the time. I am constantly running interference between them, trying
desperately to negotiate a peace plan.  It’s not working. My
diplomatic efforts have been snubbed by the inability of my two-year-old
daughter to communicate effectively and my four-year-old son’s unwavering
intolerance of anything and everything outside the realm of what is “supposed
to happen” in his grand life plan. It
is a really bad combination and I do not know if these two strong personalities
will ever be able to coexist in harmony. It doesn’t seem likely in the near future. 

My daughter is an instigator. She likes to irritate my son for the sheer joy of making him
angry. I can’t imagine where she gets
this quality. Other than the bi-weekly
pain tests (pinching of each of his fingers as hard as I could muster while
forbidding my brother to utter even the softest sound) and the constant
manipulation, I was the perfect sister. I was sweet and loving and fun as long as my brother did exactly what I
told him to without question. My son is
not quite as innocent and vulnerable as my brother was but he is still a pretty
easy target. Making him angry is a very
simple task and he always comes back for more. He just can’t seem to recognize the fact that his reaction is what
motivates my daughter to irritate him. Will he ever figure that out? Only time will tell.

Right now I need a plan. I need a consistent plan that will give me the power to punish my
daughter for irritating my son as well as the power to punish my son for
telling on her in the whiny, indescribably annoying voice of a hapless victim. The latter is incredibly taxing. Hearing my son whine and play the victim has
become so commonplace that it sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. I have to put a stop to it. Right now my plan is to divide my living
room and the backyard (where we spend the bulk of our time) into two equal
halves with a tall, clear plastic, soundproof partition. I realize this may not be the most practical
or economically sound plan but for now it’s all I’ve got. I’m open to suggestions.

Zero to Crazy

I welcomed Damien back into my home today. He made a brief (here’s hoping!) but
significant return into my life. I’ve
decided to blame his return on daylight savings time. My kids are waking up later than usual and have yet to adjust to
the new time schedule. Springing
ahead seems to be a significant adjustment for them. Thank goodness this week is spring break and, as such, I have
unplugged the alarm clock and assigned my son the task of waking up
Mommy.  This morning my son trotted up
the stairs at 8:55 and announced his presence with a, “Good morning
Mommy!” I roused myself out of sleep,
made a b-line for the shower and went through my usual morning routine. We came downstairs, got my daughter out of
her crib and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. As I was microwaving some mini-pancakes and
pouring the milk, my son yelled from the living room, “I’m going to eat my
breakfast in the living room Mommy.” I
reminded him of our rule that all meals were to be eaten in the kitchen. He asked again, “Please Mommy, can’t I just
eat my breakfast in the living room? I
promise I won’t make a mess.” Once
again, I told him that he could not. Then, as if my
words triggered a switch in his brain, my son’s behavior went from zero to crazy
in two seconds flat. He took his
beloved stuffed dog, threw it at me and said in his almost-forgotten demon
screech, “I AM EATING IN THE LIVING ROOM! IF YOU DON’T LET ME I’LL NEVER LISTEN TO YOU AGAIN!”

His rage and throwing the toy qualified him for an
immediate time-out. He fought me,
hitting and kicking while I carried him to the naughty mat. He refused to stay on the mat and was
therefore taken to his room. I locked
the door (this may sound harsh but when my son is raging it is the only way to
keep him confined). He raged and
room-wrecked and said incoherent things in his demon screech for the first two
minutes of his time-out. I heard many
objects hitting the door with a thump.

I made a decision, right then and there, that whatever toy
fallout was in his room from getting thrown against the door was going directly
into the trash. As I walked into his
room to release him from time-out, I said a little prayer that none of his good
toys would be on the floor. I got
lucky. There were two large toys that
had clearly been thrown against the door multiple times and both of them were
bought at yard sales. They still had
significant value for him but there was no sentiment or major cost involved so
it made the trip to the trashcan relatively painless for me. My son, on the other hand, had a conniption
fit when I dropped the truck and helicopter in the trashcan. I took him by the hand, led him to his door
and let him look at the damage he had done. The door looked like it had been attacked by a rabid tiger. It was covered in scratches and nicks. Thank goodness it is old and made of solid
wood. Otherwise it would have never
survived my son’s toy assault.

It is 5:00 now and both my kids are napping. We have all recovered from the
daylight-savings-time-induced hysteria episode. I’ll have to remember this next time we have to adjust our clocks
in the fall. I’ll do a little exorcism
the day after we “fall behind.”

Feathers are Falling

My son’s 666 may be fading slowly but the feathers are
falling off of my daughter’s angel wings at warp speed. As with my son, I noticed many changes in my
daughter's behavior upon returning from vacation. Hers were, unfortunately, not so positive.  I'd love to blame these changes on her Grandparents but, alas, I'm pretty sure they are just coincidental. Gone is the sweet content little girl who smiled all of the time
and never needed anything. In her place
is a strong willed little girl who knows exactly what she wants and will not
stop until she gets it.

I witnessed the first tantrum the day after I returned from vacation. It was a beautiful sunny
day and I took the kids outside to play. My son drove his cozy coup up and down the driveway while my daughter,
always the mimic, straddled her ride-on toy and shadowed her brother. About 15 minutes into our play session, my
daughter decided that she would like to drive the cozy coup. My son was less than thrilled with this
decision. He held the door shut with
all of his might, saying “No Sissy. It’s mine.” My daughter pulled
on the door with a surprising amount of force and stared at
me, jogging in place rapidly and producing a combination whine/cry that I can
only describe as the most annoying sound in the world. I explained to my daughter (in vain I knew
but I had to give it the old college try) that the car was her brother’s and
that she would have to wait her turn. I
then physically removed her hands from their death grip on the door and walked towards her ride-on toy.

I was in complete shock when, as I was carrying her, she
arched her back and screamed in my arms. She kicked and thrashed and cried. It was a legitimate tantrum.  I
attempted to put her down next to her toy but her body went limp and she
refused to stand. I laid her on the
ground beside the toy and let her throw her fit. I sat down and attempted to digest the fact that the terrible
twos were right around the corner. My
baby wasn’t a baby anymore and, along with the adorableness of toddler-hood,
came the irrational behavior and tantrums. Can I really go through this again? Is it better or worse that her terrible twos seem to be starting much
earlier than my son's? I ran upstairs
(during the kids’ naps) and dusted off my “What to Expect: the Toddler Years”
book. I looked up “handling tantrums,”
poured myself a glass of wine and thanked God that my son seemed to have
miraculously acquired a healthy dose of self control and rationality. It could not have come at a better
time. Armed with my book and some wine, I’m
ready for battle. Bring it on little
girl!

A Farewell to Damien

It is amazing how quickly the tides can change where
children are concerned. When I left for
vacation I was frazzled, tired and even feeling some desperation about my son’s
behavior. I’ve been back for four days
now and he has yet to even visit the naughty mat. His manners have been absolutely impeccable and he has been a
downright pleasure to be around. I have
rediscovered my sweet child and it is such a refreshing change.

So, my question now is, what happened? Did his grandparents, unbeknownst to me, put
him through some sort of old school behavioral boot camp while I was away? Did I need a break from him so that I could
relax and refocus my energy on the positive instead of feeling exhausted and
focused on the negative? Did he just
need a break from me? Or, is it
possible that he has turned a corner and grown up a little? I’d like to think that it is the latter but
I am well aware that my frustration level with him was palpable and that a
vacation from being a constant disciplinarian was just what the doctor, and my
son, ordered. Perhaps, though, we are
on the tail end of this difficult phase.

Maybe my son’s self-control is starting to kick in. Could it be that his room wrecker days are
behind him and holes in the walls are no longer a legitimate concern? I need to check under the hairline at the
base of his neck to see if the “666” has faded. If it has, perhaps I will be ready to retrieve the heavy object from
their random hiding places throughout the house and move them back into his
room.

Noise Pollution

I love watching Supernanny. It always makes me feel much better about my own
children. When I watch the five year
old kick and hit his Mother so hard that it makes her sob, I feel better about
my son’s tendency to kick, hit, and bite when he does not get his way. He’s never made me cry (at least not in
front of him). When I see the little
girl who dislikes her fish sticks so much that she throws her plate across the
room in a fit of anger, I feel better about my son’s nightly response to his
dinner plate: dramatic arm cross, deliberate thrusting of the bottom lip and a whiney serenade of phrases like, “I
don’t like this.” This behavior usually
continues for some time but, nine times out of ten, he follows our two-bite
rule and comes through at the last second with two feverish bites before the
egg timer goes off and he fails to get a token for “Eating” on his
responsibility chart. At least his
dinner stays on his plate. It rarely
ends up in his stomach (except for the two bites) but, if it isn’t going to
make it to his stomach, I’d prefer it not make it to the wall either.

In my opinion, the Supernanny's greatest assest is
her English origin. For some reason,
when parenting advice comes from a stout British woman it is extremely
convincing. Thanks to Jo Frost, we now
have a naughty mat in our house. It is
a brightly colored striped rug that sits in our hallway. I bought it a couple of years ago at a yard
sale and immediately had buyer’s remorse but I have, thankfully, put my $5 to
work.  Not only is the rug irrefutable
evidence of my ample abilities as an interior designer, but it is also a very
functional piece of room décor. Who
knew I could be so clever? This is
where my son serves his time-out sentences. It has worked fairly well so far and is a vast improvement from locking
him in his room (this still happens on the rare occasion that he refuses to
stay on the mat).

Thankfully, my son’s Room Wrecker phase seems to have
dissipated quite a bit. Granted, he has
found other ways to be destructive. He
is now an expert noise polluter. Because he is confined to the naughty mat and there are no loose objects
within his reach to propel, my son has decided to serenade me with vicious
sounding screams the entire duration of his time-out. It’s a joy, especially when it happens during dinner. We sit at the table attempting to convey an air of normalcy while my son screams, “Get me out of time out! It’s been 45 minutes! I WANT OUT NOW! Mommy!” He says it over
and over as if it is on some sort of tortuous loop. I guess I should be grateful for these dinner serenades. I definitely prefer noise pollution to holes
in the walls.

Choking and Poking

“No hitting. No
kicking. No choking. No poking. No yelling. No telling.”

These are the Hale family house rules. The choking and poking portion (rhyming, for
some reason, is a necessity) were a recent addendum. Unfortunately, they were not added arbitrarily. We had a choking incident in our house
recently and it was an ugly one.

Last Saturday night we had some friends over for
dinner. We went all out with a
traditional turkey dinner complete with stuffing, green bean casserole (my
friend Alyson is knocked-up and this is the only vegetable she will eat so I
took it upon myself to nourish her poor, nutritionally-challenged baby), potato casserole and a
delicious dessert that the lovely folks at the Fresh Market prepared with
tender loving care. The night went really
well. We had five kids total and they
were all playing well together. There
were a few minor incidents but nothing to write home about until Camden
(Alyson’s son) had the audacity to ignore a request made by my son. Before I even knew there was a conflict, my
son had his hands around Camden’s neck and was yelling like Fidel Castro and
strangling him right in the middle of the living room for all eyes to see. Ugghhh. What a nightmare. I immediately
removed him from the situation and took him to his room to talk to him. Here’s the conversation that took place:

Me: Choking your
friend is completely unacceptable. DO
YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

Son: Yes.

Me: Why did you do
that?

Son: Because I asked
Camden to please give me the train he was playing with and he didn’t answer me.

Me: Being ignored
does not justify choking. Nothing justifies choking. We do not hit,
kick, choke, poke, tell or yell in this house. EVER. This was when I decided to make an impromptu addendum to the
rules. I’m pretty clever with my poking
and choking rhyme aren’t I?

Son: Yes.

Me: Now you will
march back in there and apologize to Camden for choking him.  Are we clear?

Son: Yes. (Runs into living room) Camden, I’m sorry I choked you.

Shortly after that Alyson and her husband left. I was reeling for days about the incident
and still feel terrible. What in the
world was my son thinking? What caused
him to react that way and, most importantly, where did he learn to
strangle? My husband and I rarely have
verbal disagreements let alone down and dirty fights. I can say, with complete certainty, that my son has never seen my
husband choke me, or vice-versa. The
only explanation that I could come up with was that he either witnessed a
choking incident at school or on T.V. The
latter is definitely the most likely answer as he goes to a Baptist preschool
and his teacher, from what I have seen, has a great deal of control in the
classroom. Jimmy Neutron and Sponge Bob
are the likely teachers of the fine art of strangling. So, in order to prevent future incidents, I
have decided to closely monitor and limit my son’s television viewing.  I am also giving serious thought to enrolling
him in Karate. I’ve heard it provides
an excellent medium for teaching self-control and confidence. Plus, I’ve always wanted a reason to do my
Mr. Miyagi impression.

Cold Spaghetti

As the holiday season quickly approaches, I find myself
perusing the endless supply of toy catalogs that appear in my mailbox each
week. I search for things that might
appeal to my children feeling, despite my cynicism, a little giddy about
Christmas morning. Christmas has taken
on a whole new meaning since my son became old enough to understand it. There is a great deal of anticipation and
excitement that adds so much to the allure of the holiday season. I cannot wait to see his face on Christmas
morning and all I want to do is make his every wish come true. And then I have a night like tonight that
gives me a skull-shaking bitch slap back to reality.

Long story short, I made spaghetti for
dinner. We sat down and my son looked at his food disapprovingly and
said, “I want something else” in a very demanding voice. I had already prepared myself for this
inevitable scenario and decided that I was up for battle tonight. My son would eat his spaghetti. After all, he always ended up eating it
after being coaxed into the first bite by his Father or myself. He would put the spaghetti in his mouth with
a look of horror that almost immediately changed to surprised pleasure when he
dug his teeth into the pasta. He likes
spaghetti. He just refuses to eat it.

I told him calmly that we would happily provide him with
other food items but that he must eat his spaghetti first. We have coddled him entirely too much where
food is concerned and we usually end up preparing him an entirely different
meal from the one that I cook for the rest of the family. It is absolutely absurd but I created this
monster. I have to deal with the
consequences. My son sat at the table
staring at his food without making any effort to eat while the rest of us ate
and discussed our day.  He asked for a piece of garlic bread (a favorite of his). I told him that I would save a piece for him
but that he must first eat his spaghetti. Now, before you pass judgment, understand that the bowl that my son’s
spaghetti was in was the size of a small ramekin. The spaghetti that I insisted that he eat was the equivalent of
three average-sized adult bites. I was
not asking for much. He was stoic and
resolute and absolutely refused to eat.

I decided to ignore his behavior and put the piece of garlic
bread in a Ziploc baggie. I told him
that I would save it for when he was ready to eat his spaghetti. He decided to take a different approach and
told me that he was not capable of getting bites on his fork and needed
help. This stems from the fact that, on
spaghetti nights, his father tends to use all means necessary to get my son to
eat, including actually spooning the food into his mouth. I disapprove of this wholeheartedly and it
came back to bite us tonight. My son
insisted that he could not be expected to eat the spaghetti when he could not
get any on his fork. I told him that he
was a big boy and that we would not be feeding him. I reminded him that he could eat applesauce with utensils and
that spaghetti was a breeze in comparison. He continued to insist that someone help him get the spaghetti from the
bowl to his mouth. We continued to
refuse. It did not go well.

My son spent a great deal of time in his room tonight. He threw fit after fit, room wrecking,
screaming, jumping, and throwing things. He desperately wanted that garlic bread and I desperately wanted him to
have it but, after nearly two hours, he was not giving in. His bedtime rolled around and I poured him a
glass of whole milk and got him ready for bed. In the end, I lost the battle. My son did not eat his spaghetti.  He lost
his battle too, though. That garlic bread is
sitting in a Ziploc bag on top of the refrigerator calling my name. I’m stressed out and frazzled and dreaming
about how good it will taste with a glass of red wine. Yum.

Little Monster

My daughter has started hitting when she doesn’t get her
way. She’s 17 months old and at the
height of adorableness so it is very difficult to get angry with her. For instance, this morning she kept pointing
at the bag of chips on top of the refrigerator and saying her “I want” word,
“Mo-aahh.” I told her no and she
pointed again and said, “Mo-aahh.” I
told her no again. She walked up to my
leg and slapped it while staring right at me. She made a really angry face and grunted as she slapped me. It reminded me a great deal of her
brother. 

It appears that, unlike her brother, my daughter is
discovering her autonomy at a very young age. My son was sweet and obedient until after he turned three. Apparently, my daughter’s days of sweetness
and light are nearing an end. I need to
brace myself for the months ahead, dealing with the terrible two’s when they
are actually supposed to occur. This is
a concept that is foreign to me. I have
no idea how to discipline a child who cannot yet communicate or if it is even
possible. What should I do when she
hits me? My current plan is to say, “we
do not hit” firmly, every time she gets physical with someone. I’m hoping that sooner or later it will sink
in.

This is all very ironic because my good friend’s daughter,
Katherine, was around my daughter’s age when we met. Katherine and my son used to play together several times a week
when she was my daughter’s age. She
would push him down, slap him, hit him, and kick him on a fairly consistent
basis. I felt sorry for my son (who was
around 10 months old at the time) but attributed that behavior to her age and
let her Mom handle it. I, of course,
secretly thought she was a little monster and vowed never to let my child behave
that way. I was a first-time, super naïve
Mother at the time and was not yet aware of the power of karma in the realm of
parenting. Boy, did that thinking come
back to haunt me. I’ve got a little
Katherine on my hands. 

Katherine is now a smart, sweet, funny four-year-old and
continues to be my son’s best friend and future wife (according to him). She still has her moments but she is much
more mature than my son and very rarely loses control of her emotions. I guess it’s time to ask her Mom for some
advice. She clearly knew what she was
doing.

Self-Hypnosis

After my son’s room wrecker incident, I decided that I
needed to make some changes in my disciplinary tactics. One tool that I rarely use is positive
reinforcement. I realize that positive
reinforcement is an extremely effective tool but it takes thought and
preparation, neither of which is my strong suit. If I have trouble getting my son dressed in the morning, I
threaten him with a time out. Instead
of encouraging him to eat, I threaten him with the loss of something: dessert,
a game, or some one-on-one play time. These tactics are rarely effective and they usually just end up making
me look bad because he always ends up getting the dessert, game, or play
time. He eats eventually. It just takes an absurd amount of coaxing.

Most parents, when faced with a frustrating situation, tend
to instinctually threaten. That’s just
how we operate. I cannot count how many
times that I have threatened my child within an inch of his life because as I
try to get everyone out the door, he strolls slowly towards the car,
checks out the flowers, and talks incessantly about how much the plants have
grown. I find myself saying over and
over again, in a voice that is just louder than his, “Get in the car. Get in the car. Get in the car. Get in
the car.”  This is a little technique
that I use to hypnotize myself ever so slightly so that I don’t lose my
mind. It is very effective for me, not
so much for my son. He actually wants
to take time to smell the roses. I will
not allow that nonsense. We must get to
the play date by 11:00 so that I don’t miss anything. If we are late, I’ll probably get stuck at a table with someone I
don’t know. It would be unfortunate if
I actually have to make an effort in a conversation.

In an effort to change my ineffective ways, I have gone
Supernanny. I created a reward chart
for my son and have made an agreement with myself that when I need to get him
to do something (as opposed to getting him to stop doing
something), I will use the reward system instead of threatening him. The reward chart resembles a bar graph and,
at the top of each bar is a picture of a reward. He can earn tickets to make his way to the top of each bar. The bars get taller as he earns more tickets
and, thus, the prizes get better. The
first prize, for example, is a cup of chocolate milk. The final prize is a trip for the whole family to Chuck E.
Cheese. It has gone really well so
far. In the mornings, when I want him
to get dressed (an activity he always resists), I lay out his clothes and set
the egg timer for 6 minutes. If he gets
fully dressed before the timer goes off, he earns a ticket. The same system works for bedtime when he
changes into his pajamas and dinnertime.

It did backfire on me initially. The first couple of times he dilly-dallied and did not get
dressed before the timer went off. As
soon as he heard the buzzer go off, he freaked. I ended up having to put the kid in time-out because he refused
to stop screaming. This caused another
room wrecker incident and, on one occasion, actually resulted in his being late
for school. After these incidents,
though, he really caught on. He’s been
getting dressed quickly and without coaxing in the morning. Our family has been able to enjoy dinner
because we are not spending the entire time trying to come up with creative
ways to get our son to eat. And, most importantly, I have
been resorting to self-hypnosis with less and less frequency.

Room Wrecker

My son has always been fairly well behaved and sweet. He sailed through his third year commonly
known as “the terrible two’s” with nary a tantrum to be found. I braced myself for the worst when I brought
my daughter home from the hospital.  He
was 2 and a half and very comfortable being the center of attention. He surprised us all with his immediate love
for his sister and lack of any sign of sibling rivalry. I was filled with pride and
self-satisfaction knowing that I had successfully bypassed “the terrible
twos.”

Shortly after my son’s third birthday things began to
change. He started to throw tantrums
when he did not get what he wanted, complete with jumping up and down and
screaming. I was shocked. It was as if turning three had flipped a
switch in his head. We are now ten
months into his fourth year and I am hoping to get off of this behavior roller
coaster soon. I’m tired, nauseous and
sweaty and I've been strapped in this seat for entirely too long.

This past week, we hit G-force for the first time when we
discovered that our son is a room-wrecker. We generally send him to his room for a 3-minute time-out and close the
door. For a very long time, he would
obediently walk to his room and shut the door when he received a time-out. That has all changed. Lately, we have been forced to drag him to his room
kicking and screaming. He kicks, bites,
hits, yells, and behaves as if we are sentencing him to life without chocolate
milk. We have to put him in his room,
shut the door and hold it shut (there is no lock on the outside). His time-out does not start until he can
calm himself down. This can take a VERY
long time.

Yesterday he was put in time-out four times for minor
offenses. Each time, the same chain of
events occurred with one shocking addition. When we would put him into his room, he started throwing things. He threw all of the books off of his shelf
(we have hundreds). He threw his
trashcan against the door over and over again. He picked up his quilt rack and threw it against the door. He got his father’s belt, which was hanging
on the door, down and started swinging it around and around so that the metal
buckle hit the door continuously. I was
on the outside of the door the entire time crying and wondering what had
happened. When did my son become so
violent? What had I done to contribute
to this? WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?

I ran upstairs and grabbed my favorite discipline manual, 1-2-3
Magic by Thomas W. Phelan, Ph. D., and scanned through the table of contents
to see if I could find some words of wisdom. I did. There is an entire
section devoted to room wreckers. Phew. I found great comfort in knowing that I was
not alone.

I am putting Dr. Phelan’s plan into effect and bracing
myself for some commando parenting. It
will be a difficult week but it will be worthwhile. My son is a wonderful little boy and I will not let him spiral
out of control. He deserves more than
that.

Does Spanking Release Endorphins?

Why is it that every mainstream "expert" opposes spanking but
every Mother that I know practices it?  We are a generation that earnestly
listens to the advice of the Supernanny and Dr. Phil but we still spank our
kids.  Are we throwing temper tantrums when we do this?  Have we lost
our cool?  Does spanking release endorphins?  I think the answer to
all three of these questions is unequivocally, "yes."  I have
found myself resorting to spanking when I feel as if I have no other
options.   My son pushes my buttons.  My blood pressure rises.
My reasonable, calm self is replaced by an irrational, angry creature that
cannot articulate a coherent sentence, let alone effectively discipline a
child. 



Spanking is never an effective discipline tool for my son.  I have seen
the results time and time again.  My son gets frightened and, thus, more
angry and difficult to control.  I know that it does not work but I still
continue to do it.  Why?  The only reasonable explanation is that I
spank my child to make myself feel better.  It appears that I am the one
lacking self-control.  My son is just reacting to the situation.  I
am creating it. 



My favorite aspect of parenthood is, by far, the guilt.  As a Mother, I
have quite a bloated ego when it comes to the impact that my behavior will have
on my child.  In my mind, my son is well on his way to being a serial
killer because I spanked him a few times.  Oh well, surely Ted Bundy's
mother loved him anyway, right?



FYI:  I am aware that my blanket statement about mainstream experts is not
entirely accurate.  I realize this is a controversial subject and I am
just expressing my personal views.

Why Another Gray Hair?

I chose the name "Another Gray Hair" for my blog because that is,
essentially, the theme of my life.  For example, today I was in Target
heading towards the checkout line and my son (4) was standing on the metal bar
at the front of the shopping cart, holding onto the basket for dear life.
This is not my favorite shopping cart arrangement but, with two kids, you do
what you can.  About 20 feet from the checkout, my son asked if he could
get inside the shopping basket insisting that he was tired (this was absurd as
30 seconds earlier he was running up and down the aisle of the shoe department
like a ferret on crack).  Sometimes I do things based on reason and logic
and sometimes I do them based on pointless, stubborn principal.  This time
I chose the latter when I told him that he could not sit in the shopping cart basket.
He continued to ask about six more times consecutively, to which I responded
with a curt "no."  I told him to stop asking or else ("or
else" meaning consequences I had yet to determine).  He started
screaming at the top of his lungs in a violent, raging voice a stream of
incoherent words while simultaneously kicking the cart and grunting in a Monica
Seles-esque way.  I threw my items at my Mother, walked out of the store
with both kids, and made my son stand against the outer brick wall of Target while
thinking about what he had done.  Impromptu time-outs have become a way of
life for me.  By the time it was all said and done, he had lost two of his
toys to the "poor kids" (our term for Goodwill.  I must give
props to my friend Jacquelyn for this one.  She uses it in her house
too.  It's not exactly PC but it is effective for toddlers) and I grew another
gray hair.