Yeah, I heard the information but it is sooo much harder to actually do it in the heat of the moment. This morning Little S kicked Levi in the mouth. I saw it, I knew what happened, but do you think I could get him to ADMIT he kicked his brother? Heck no. After minutes of me arguing with a 4 year old and LOSING (yeah, goodbye pride...) it finally dawned on me. I stopped, put him in a chair until he could say he was sorry, stopped arguing with him and just told him he was in control of when he got out of the chair. Then I walked away. Totally frustrated and mad at myself, but quiet. Little S sat there for a good 10 minutes, first crying big tearless fake sobs, then whining loudly, then finally pouting quietly. Eventually he got off the chair and apologized to Levi. I praised him for that and told him to go play.
Man, these techniques sound so simple, if A then B, etc. But in reality it goes against every parenting instinct. I have a lot to learn and practice!
2 comments:
Welcome to therapeutic parenting! It is, indeed, incredibly difficult and it does go completely against our instincts...which are generally to smack the kid into next week, or at least harsly punish them.
I'm absolutely so not perfect at it, either. But, I can tell you that as you practice and practice and practice, it does get easier.
Yes, it is HARD. But it sounds like you did pretty good! In my experience, it does get easier with practice (so far, 2.25 years), but so far it hasn't gotten what I would call easy!
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