Had to take the Christmas tree down this evening. Jade (who surely is old enough to know better) simply cannot keep her hands off the ornaments. She has broken 3 of my favourite ones so far, and was told very clearly and firmly NOT to take any more stuff off the tree. She has since taken two more down, both of them my most precious ones, so I told her that since she couldn't seem to control herself, the tree and its ornaments would have to be removed. So DH and I instantly packed everything away and took it down.
Actually she is severely testing our patience in many ways lately. I hate to say it, because naturally I love her anyway but it has to be admitted that she is rather selfish and badly-behaved quite often. I am torn between wanting to rant about it, and not wanting to set out all her worst behaviour in public. It probably doesn't help, from Jade's point of view, that Shannon is incredibly sweet-natured and adorable, so the contrast between the two is particularly stark. We are planning a couple of ways to try and address the problem, but unfortunately my natural reaction is to yell and shout and come down on her very hard, and it has little effect, except possibly to make the situation worse. And then I'm conscious that if my self-control isn't that good, then why should hers be?
I once read that parenting is the most intensive self-development course you can ever undergo. That person was right.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
we have the parentin problem in the alternative birth order. I agree between wanting to rant and yet not wanting to bring all your childs faults out to light the day. I expect SB at least to read our blog.
think parenting is an adaptive process. unfortunately BB's behaviour evolves far quicker than my adaptive strategies. She even threw one of her own toys into the bin today as I had threatened that id she carried on. Guess I wont bother with that again...
F is having at least one major strop every day at the moment and it is really difficult to deal with, have tried the whole range of approaches now. Some work in the short-term but still it happens again, even the same day sometimes.
Hard, isn't it?
OH dear :-( No words of wisdom for you except maybe it's down to this sleep thing that you and me both need to do soemthing about? I know Aprilia is utterly vile when tired almost as if she WANTS to get sent to her room for time out for a rest (and yes, I know, time out is barbaric etc but it's safer for her than me losing my temper!) I'm seriously considering a scheduled rest break just after lunch when she needs to go and rest with a story CD or something for an hour to see if it does any good.
Post a Comment