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Sunday, April 29, 2012

My kids are driving me crazy - part 2

Discipline. 

I realize it's very individual and personalized to each family but we could use some advise here.  In my Vicodin haze of the past 3 weeks I've let things slide, it's easy to do when your brain is on narcotics.  When your oldest hisses at you, you think 'well that's not so bad'.  Then a hiss leads to more sass and more talking back to loud disrespectful NO's until you're finally off the drugs and you think to yourself, 'wow my kids are really bad'! 

I guess things had to finally come to a breaking point.  Two kids playing so rough they were throwing toys in the air without any care for where they landed - which was on mom nursing baby Violette.  No one listened when they were told to stop.  They were put in time out on their beds and shouted at.  For the rest of the morning I didn't take my eyes off them.  The second they tried to engage in a banned act they were told to stop, if they didn't stop they were immediately put in time out.  If they sassed, they were put in time out.  I was very tough on both of them, now my voice hurts.  And I'm exhausted.

There were tears at first, but those turned to kisses and general cheerfulness.

We believe (husband and I) that they misbehave to test boundaries, get our attention and sometimes just get carried away with their activities.

We are trying very hard to "lighten up" but the areas we absolutely cannot abide are disrespect and hard play over furniture that can lead to ER visits.

Would love to hear your insights on how you deal with small ones in these circumstances.

2 comments:

Amanda said...

Not that I have any experience whatsoever in this circumstance, but it sounds like you did exactly as you needed to do.

Crystal N said...

We occasionally have to do the same with E when she's testing. Time outs, etc.