1. I heard Darcy's first belly laugh. Oh my goodness. I can't even express in words what that feels like. It's the funniest and the sweetest thing all at once. You cannot help but laugh with her. Oh, and she had a healthy 4 month check up today. 95% percentile on height & weight. So at least she's proportional but she's a chub.
2. Camryn got in trouble today. The kind that took only a few words and she knew exactly why she was in trouble. The kind that sent her butt straight to bed and she didn't protest once. The kind that made us so angry that we told her it's going to work out much better for her if we deal with it the morning because we were so angry with her. I've never been this angry with her. Camryn gets so many free passes from us. We try our hardest to put into perspective that she's 4. And in most cases that's okay.
But lately she's been writing on stuff. Not paper, which we've drilled into her head since she could pick up a crayon. But stuff. Coffee table, carpet, Darcy's car seat. Thank goodness for washable markers. Still working on the carpet though. Her markers were taken away for an undisclosed period of time. She's only to use colored pencils and crayons until I think she can handle markers again. She has seen me get upset over these incidents and not offered a single apology.
And tonight, I popped in to check my email and saw pen mark all over our brand new computer screen. BRAND NEW. And the screens these days are not the glass screens. They're the plastic screens that can be scratched much easier and the slightest pressure could damage the screen. She happened to be in the room when I noticed it. I was speechless. And that doesn't happen often. I couldn't believe it! I started saying oh no! oh no! and Craig came in, saw what had happened and started yelling. Now Camryn Rose is such a fragile little flower. She goes straight to tears in a second. She gets that from me. I tear up at so many ridiculous things.
I told her if she woke up her sister it was going to be worse and at least that toned it down a bit.
OK, so what in the world do you do to punish a 4 1/2 year old who definitely knows better? What's going to stick with her? Take away the computer? OK, probably for a while. Definitely pens now. What else? What can I ground her from or do that's really going to make an impact on her, so she gets it.
I tried to clean it with a damp rag and no luck. It appeared to be permanent and under the surface. FORTUNATELY, Craig hopped online to see how to clean it and found that rubbing alcohol might work. It did. Oh my goodness. What a relief!
OK, now what. She still needs to learn a lesson, but the damage isn't what we originally thought. Meanwhile she's crying her eyes out and wailing upstairs. And when we go to check on her (she can get so hysterical she has trouble breathing), she's seriously worried that we don't love her anymore. Oh no! What an impact our glares must have had on her because we barely said anything. Just the body language was enough for her to realize she screwed up big time. It made my heart sad that she believed it was possible for us to stop loving her.
So now what? We told her we would discuss it tomorrow. But not sure what the right consequence is. She's old enough to know better, for sure, but she's 4.
4 comments:
That's a tough one, isn't it Jay?! Disciplining all the while making sure they know you love them. We had to ground Macie recently (she's 7) and that was one of her questions, too. She cried when we told her she was grounded for 3 days from the computer (that's one of her favorite things to play with) and she asked me if we still loved her. I told her that yes, we absolutely loved her and that was why we were disciplining her, because we love her. I explained that if we didn't love her, we wouldn't care what she did, but because we love her so much, we expect her to listen to us and obey what we tell her. (She had picked up Mabrie after already being told not to pick her up without us there).
I would find something that Cam really loves (a toy, TV, etc.) and take it away for a couple days. At 4 years old, they def. know how to listen and can understand consequences of bad behavior. I would explain that because she chose not to obey, you are forced to take "X" away for a couple of days. Make sure she knows that SHE chose to disobey and therefore, she has to deal with the punishment. Good luck girl! I feel for you cause it's never easy to punish your kids.
Well-- the old world of parenting is a tough deal and it continues to get a little more intense all the time. So better you than me. :-)
Seriously-- the sit down talk is necessary here. First be convincing-- We will always love you no matter what, but you did disappoint us because we thought we could trust you with "our" stuff as an equal member of the family. That has to be revisited now. I'd ask why she did it to see what and "if" she was thinking at the time. Then you and Craig have to decide on the punishment.
Kids do not understand the consequences of their actions necessarily-- They may know it is not the "right" thing to do, but they may not take into consideration opportunity costs.
Don't forget your tag-line about "figuring out parenthood." Probably your and Craig's reactions cancelled any future problems of this exact nature, but I agree that there must be a consequence. Use your intuition; it's good.
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