Here's how events transpire: Maeve engages in an action (in anger) which I give her one reminder that she needs to stop doing. She does it again immediately. I march her to her room and close the door, and she may leave when she counts to ten and says "please" in a quiet voice. She proceeds to scream and hit the door for a few minutes, however long it takes her to calm down. At this point, the less I interact with her, the quicker she calms herself down. Then she finally comes around, counts, says please, and gets a hug when she comes out and I praise her for calming herself down.
I'm just over it, though. It's not fun, I don't know if it accomplishes anything at all, I just need the child to know that screaming, throwing toys, hitting, and biting are not okay, and she needs to learn to get control of her temper. I figure that learning how to take herself out of the situation and cool down is what she really needs, along with getting a better linguistic foothold in the situation. And although we've been working really hard on using her words instead of screaming, I still get screamed at a dozen or so times a day, at least.
Being consistent is so wearying. And, you know, doing all the other parenting stuff is pretty wearying, too, so it sucks to have to add something else exhausting to my to-do list. But taking stuff away from her has not worked, and I'm not willing (though often tempted) to wallop the child, so time-out seems to be my best option. Welcome to 3, I guess. It's gonna be a long year.
Welcome to my life times ten. I'm just glad I get to go home at the end of the day and it stinks that you just have to deal. Sometimes it seems like time out isn't effective, but it's necessary for your own sanity. And like you said, she's learning to self-soothe which is always a good skill. We don't give chances though, especially if they know it's an unacceptable behavior. And after they sit we have a very serious discussion on what's acceptable and unacceptable behavior. I know this sounds horrible, but if they're crying you know you're getting through. EEP. I sound like such a bad person. But my Hummingbirds have been absolute terrors lately and I sadly don't have a room the shut them in :) They also like to take off their shoes and socks, we like to call it the toddler f.u. Ah children, it's a good thing they're cute. BE STRONG. Three is also a super FUN age!
ReplyDelete