have any of your children said this... - Page 2

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by pauletoy

I wasn't grounded from my room, I was grounded from having the door "to" my room. That's right...my mom would take the door right off the hinges. Never really made sense to me because she would do it for completely unrelated infractions, like riding my bike too far down the street.

DS1 has a friend whose home is like that. This guy gets grounded for every infraction, no matter what it was. I've seen him get grounded for not doing homework (and it wasn't because he was out hanging with his friends or anything), for not finishing his lunch, etc. It's just so strange to me. I have grounded ds1 - once - but it was for staying out until 8:00 after school without calling or anything. (He was 12.) He totally understood why he was grounded, too.

[lilyka]

Well obviously you should not slap her. But i get her point. I would have much rather been hit than yelled at as a child. Even as an adult. I really think it is silly that everyone thinks spanking is so bad but that yelling, while not great, is preferable. I think yelling in anger is much worse than a spanking. Not that I am implying you should spank. But I think yelling can be as damaging or more so to a child.

I think what you need to do is look at how you are disciplining her and see what you can do differently. What you are doing does not seem to to be working. Perhaps rather than getting frustrated and then freaking out while trying to hold to some ideal that is not working, you should just decide perhaps you are a mom who disciplines rather than doing CL. You said you feel like you are losing control but with CL not controlling them is sorta the point isn't it? Maybe it is time to have some rules and boundaries and expectations and consequences for not following through. If the fear of losing screen time is a motivator for her perhaps you should just go to that before you lose control and yell and hit.

[Lisa1970]

This sort of statement is more likely to come out of a child who has not been hit and has no clue about it. I know it may seem like it happened because you slapped her, but I am sure she knows of others being slapped or spanked and would rather spanked or hit than have to deal with what she perceives as a real punishment.

Stand your ground. She may be manipulating you. Don't stand down, keep your cool, and give her the direction that you feel she needs.

((((hugs)))))

[captain optimism]

Originally Posted by meemee

the guilt here is capt O that on days that i have her i also have school so on those days its a mad rush to finish hw and eat dinner. we dont really get much time together. which is why it really, really works to cosleep.

I hear you about this. It's why we're still cosleeping over here, too.

If you don't want to give punishments, don't give them. Don't make the limits you set on screen time into a punishment. It's hard enough for her if you have to say, "Do your homework first," or "It's time for bed, I'm going to unplug this thing!" You'll have enough conflict over things you have to limit without making those limits into punishments. That's what I think--parents always have to say no even when we don't believe in it.

My kid's still a year younger than yours. He sometimes gets grouchy and whiny about being detached from the computer when screentime is over, or even about being taken away from the rubberbands and paperclips to get to the next activity. (He seriously also plays with them! He just made something with a pen, a rubber band, a clip and some string... where does he come up with this stuff?)

We don't like the whining and crying and pointing and saying "Don't talk to me!" Are you having trouble with transitions too? I've found sometimes it makes sense to ask him to go take a minute to pull himself together--just interrupt the conflict between us and lie on the bed, or have some juice, or a hug. Do a quick, mostly symbolic, meeting of the child's needs (rest, food, comfort, physical activity, whatever--just as much as there's time to do) and then get back on track.

[meemee]

yiippppeee i am soooo excited. we figured this out.

my dd just doesnt want her tv and computer time taken away.

she was saying slap me only because seh thought that was the other option.

but yesterday afternoon finally we were able to figure out on public transit (the high schooler sitting in front of us kept LOL at our conversation).

dd chose chores. she would put the dishes away and do laundry instead of giving up media time. and i said hey that would be really helful for me. i would really appreciate some help.

so now she cant wait to do the laundry and put away the dishes.

she's been doing a lot of chores at her dad's house so i havent been asking her to do much. she does help esp. with things she likes doing like cooking, cleaning the refrigerator, putting left overs away.