Abigail has been pushing the limits a bit more lately. She still is a pretty obedient child, but we have had more tantrums lately. If she doesn't get what she wants, the whining and crying begins. We're trying a variety of tactics to see what works. The current strategy is to let her be in time out until she calms down. She often says she's done whining and crying right when we get into the time out area, so that's good. We had a rougher period very recently where we couldn't seem to help her get a grip even though we weren't giving in, being consistent, disciplining, complimenting positive behavior...trying everything you're told. We're still working through that somewhat. When Abby goes to time out, once she calms down, she apologizes for what she's done. Then, we hug and pray together. There are times when I put her into time out for disobeying, and she apologizes by saying, "Sorry, obeying (she can't say disobeying yet), whining, crying." I've tried to explain she hasn't been whining and crying, so she doesn't need to say sorry for that, but I don't think she gets it. When we go to pray, she also says, "Pray, Whining, Crying." So, we pray for that even if she's not struggling with it at the moment. A funny moment the other day was when we were in the car and I heard her playing with her edible "bunnies" (similar to "Goldfish"). She was having them walk around her car seat and saying, "Walka, walka, walka." Suddenly, in a firm voice she says, "Time out, Bunnies! No walking!" Love that kid. As the Pritchards say, "We love you too much to let this behavior go unpunished."
2 comments:
you're doing great! just keep on it -- it will sink in. we've noticed with all our kids (especially at that age) they need the consistency to get a good feel of the rules -- then they do much better. keep up the awesome work!
Thanks for sharing the ups and downs of life. I love the honesty. Something that worked really well for Angie was to state things in a positive way. For example, instead of saying no whining or crying, we'd say, "use a big girl voice." Of course I stole that from the Prichards. : ) They say to ask for the behavior you want instead of drawing attention to the negative behavior. Something that simple made a world of difference in my home. Debbie Le
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