Help me stop disciplining out of fear!

[peaceful_mama]

My own.

Seriously...we live in a neighborhood with some kids who I have *nightmares* about mine growing up to act and be like---one example, a kid who was seen and identified ringing a doorbell and running away--at 11 PM!! When the neighbor went to talk to the family about it, the kid denied it and THEN the kid told her to "get off his property" !! WT....*censored* I could see myself as a kid maybe trying to deny and get out of trouble (maybe, but I was pretty honest) but I would've never *thought* to say that. Same family....same kid threw rocks (the little pebbles on the playground) at the community room windows (apt. complex) while some foreign neighbors were having a party there. One of the neighbors went to tell the parents what the kid was doing, they hid in the house, pretended not to be home, then called the cops and said this group of people BROKE INTO the community room! (IMO it should've had hate crime charges, but I never heard anything like that come out of it. I only mentioned the 'foreign' part of it because it's so obvious to me that this would not have been done to a group of 'majority race' neighbors and their friends.)

Just in general, most of the kids around here--except for a few who my kids are allowed to play with, don't have rules, don't have boundaries, don't have respect. And, unfortunately, the ones who are here all day (I SAH) are children who run with no supervision. The minute I let my kids outside, something happens. And we have TRIED even talking to the other parents--CLUELESS and DON'T CARE. (my last straw was when a parent was outside and SAW her child chasing mine with a giant wooden shovel handle and DID NOTHING.)

My children have learned a whole new vocabulary from these kids. And they have begun insisting they should be outside because these other kids are, because the others are out they should not have to come in and eat and get ready for bed before it is dark outside, etc. etc. (I go out with them, but this junk happens when I am sitting on our lawn and they are riding bikes in view and stop to talk to kids....I also used to be a little more lax before I realized everything that was going on, so they picked up a few things.)

And now, whenever they do something that might be somewhat normal (for example, last night, I said we had to leave the swimming pool....they didn't want to, so they ran back in the water. Might be a normal thing to try out once and see what I'll do. I now have horrible flash-forward scenes in my head of them becoming just like the kids in this neighborhood, or the child i saw when I was working in a local school who told the principal to "F-off")

I KNOW. I KNOW that I am a present, involved parent. I KNOW that I am not like some of these parents.

That doesn't stop me from disciplining harshly because I am scared that if I don't, I will have kids who have no respect and run wild.

And then, what's probably worse is of course, after I have said that I am "NEVER TAKING YOU SWIMMING AGAIN THIS SUMMER AND WE ARE CUTTING OFF YOUR SWIM PATCH WHEN WE GET HOME" I realize just how harsh I've been on little people who are 5.5 and 3.5 and I don't follow through. (I did not take them swimming today, and they spent most of today in the house because they did run off, and that is entirely unacceptable and unsafe. And i did end up having a civilized discussion on how sometimes our plans might change when we are out, and they might feel sad or angry about it, but they absolutely need to stay with me no matter what or we can't go out.)

So HOW do i get that voice out of my head that tells me if I am not harsh on them they are going to grow up to be...everything I don't want?

[ssh]

You don't have to be harsh with your children to have children that know how to behave appropriately. You do have to be consistent with your expectations and boundaries. You do have to be patient and persistent enough to guide your DC to make good choices ALL the time. The kids that run wild and do rude stuff when they're older aren't getting enough attention from the adults around them usually. They aren't being consistently disciplined.

We don't use punishment at all. We model expected behavior, discuss the whys of good choices and bad choices, have consistent family rules and expectations. Our almost 5 year old is usually polite, helpful, considerate and listens more and more all the time as she matures. Of course we supervise her, pay attention to her, interact with her and let her know every single time she is rude or is trying to do something she shouldn't.

Just trust your heart and don't let fear influence you. Love leads us to good choices not fear. You are present and attentive and your kids will grow up modeling the behavior they see you doing. Kids learn respect by being around adults who are respectful of each other and the world around them.

It sounds like you're in a less than ideal neighborhood. I'll try to stop regretting that there aren't a lot of kids in ours. At least the few we have are nice kids.

[lolar2]

I don't know if this is geographically possible for you, but if it is, maybe if you could arrange for your children to spend lots of time with nicer children, you wouldn't be as worried about influence from the neighbors and you'd have more peace of mind. Does that make sense? Maybe a religious community or a moms group?

[peaceful_mama]

Well, we *had* a pretty good thing going with a moms' group and then their oldest kids got to be "officially" homeschooling age and they have gotten really busy with homeschooling group stuff. We are not homeschooling...so that leaves us out.
Plus, the two moms I was closest with--well still am I guess--their kids are all girls the same age and all best buds, so when we *all* get together, well, I've basically NOT sought that out anymore because it seems to turn into them buddying up and uniting *against* my oldest. One attempt sticks out in particular where I really felt one mom was NOT doing her job to redirect or help her kids not be openly hostile at least in play toward mine. (And even that is far better than a lot of what goes on in my current neighborhood, it was garden-variety "let's unite and leave this kid out" play keep-away kind of stuff, undesirable but normal child behavior. As opposed to me walking up to a group of randomly 9-10 kids, two of whom were mine, in this area...the big children all had sticks (those roughly 6 or 7 and older) and the little ones (mine plus two or three others) were laying on the ground. One child was walking around hitting the kids who weren't laying perfectly still with the stick. The other older kids were just sitting there with sticks...there, but not actively involved, but not resisting this 'game' either. The odd part was it was a young 'older kid' who instigated this and was actively doing it. I was SO HAPPY when that kid moved--he's also the child who graced my kids' vocabulary with a certain 7 letter word.) That particular "game", incident, seriously disturbed me. I don't know why, there was just something really weird about it.

oh and there's the fact that I let DD out to ride her bike in front of the house the other day...she was outside MAYBE 10 mins. some of which were in view of me so she had to be 5 mins maybe out of sight....a child DS1's age roughly asked her to pull her pants down and fingernail polished her butt. Again..my kids would not think to do something like that. Yes, I have gotten the message loud and clear that they WILL NOT be outside without my DIRECT BUTT SITTING OUTSIDE SUPERVISION. Which means they won't be out much I guess.

I am also enrolling DS in religious classes to begin this Sunday. Ours don't start till the kids are school-age. I am hoping that might lead us to more involvement with the community again, I've sort of been isolated since the group I was participating with moved locations and wasn't doing much and I had another baby and was just busy with all that.

And I have to say, our neighborhood is a huge part of why DS is enrolled in a charter that I have to drive him to. I told my mom I'm not so worried about *at school* as I am what might go on while he is riding the bus for the about 45 min. ride home. There's no bus aide supervising the kids, so they are virtually unsupervised because the driver is well, driving. I might not worry so much in another area, but out here....I've already seen what happens in the bits of time they spend out not under someone's direct supervision right here. I do not want 45 minutes every single day of that plus whatever contact there will be in school.

I can't wait to get out of here. I want a house with a fenced-in yard so I can send them out for a bit to play/explore on their own a little, the kind of neighborhood where I can let DS1 ride down the street on his bike and not worry what might be going on. Here, I feel like their jailer. But it's what I have to do, they can't even be out on their bikes mostly in sight while I do something inside for a few minutes without something like the fingernail polish incident going on! (yes we had a very serious talk, that my 5 yr old really understood but I don't know how much DD got....about how they are NOT to take off their clothes for *anybody*, no matter WHO it is, I don't care if it is an older kid, an adult, NOBODY....they are to say "NO!" and tell me who asked them to do this.)

*sigh* who knew this would be so hard? I did manage to stay away from mention of people who might hurt them, and kept it to exactly what I felt they need to know...and they didn't ask why I was making such a big deal out of removing clothes. (another thing I swore I'd never do, tell my kids constant stuff about 'strangers' and people that might hurt them or other scare tactics as discipline, or for any reason.)

[mom2grrls]

I think a good book to read that helps with fears like this is Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. It talks about fears just like this. You do not have to be harsh. Kids do things we'd rather they not even with the best of circumstances sometimes and most things are phases that pass.

[peaceful_mama]

That might be worth a re-read! I've read it, but I know it was in our old place, which we moved here about a month before my now 21 mo old was born...and I don't remember how old DD was, I just know it's one of the books I read during many hours of nursing her

i also wanted to say that I can get together with the moms group friends separately and our kids get along great---me and either *one* of their kids at a time...it's the big group where the icky dynamics come out...and not *always* like a few weeks ago we were all walking and playing in a really cool park and that was fine.

[lolar2]

It may be that you'll have to go out of your way for a while to get together with some of the moms group friends individually, until you can move, if you want to make sure your children have some more positive peer influences.