August 31, 2010
The Perils of Discipline 6
Three….what can I say about being three years old? Well, testing boundaries, rules, and independence sums up the age pretty nicely. We have passed through the threshold of summer, usually our difficult months, pretty easily. I thought I was going to pull out my hair a few times but all and all, we haven’t had too many scuffles. Catherine is a good kid but like most preschoolers she is getting good at testing her mother and father. For the most part she listens but we do have our battles, one of them being cleaning up at the end of the day. Actually, cleaning up at all. She dillies and dallies and dawdles until my blood pressure is way, way, way above normal. I have tried a few tactics but none of them seem to hold out for very long. I have tried timers…worked for about a three days. I have tried positive reinforcement by putting hearts on her chart. When she gets 7 hearts she gets a small prize. That lasted about a week. I have tried negative reinforcement by taking away her beloved silly bands but that doesn’t work either.
This child baffles me. It seems like whatever form of discipline we try it just doesn’t work. For example, when it’s clean up time we set the timer for 15 minutes. If she doesn’t get everything cleaned up by then she doesn’t get a heart. That used to motivate her. Now she will say, ‘I don’t need a heart.’ I kicked it up a notch. She gets her 15 minutes and if she doesn’t have everything cleaned up, I add another 7 minutes to the timer and if she still doesn’t get everything cleaned up then I would take away her silly bands. Well tonight, 15 minutes passed…’I don’t need a heart’…set the timer for 7 minutes….5 minutes in she was taking off her bracelets saying, ‘I don’t need my silly bands’….I then got so exasperated that I told her I was going to send her to bed without a story or her beloved panda bear. She then retorted with, ‘I want to go to bed.’ By that time she was done cleaning up. Needless to say, it’s been a few days since she has gotten a heart on her chart.
There are other a couple of other issues that we have battles over and it seems that negative and positive reinforcement does not work. She only goes to ‘time out’ now if she has done something serious and even that doesn’t seem to sway her. Like I said, she really doesn’t get into trouble very much but these daily battles over smaller issues I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to navigate. If rewards don’t work and taking away an item or a privilege doesn’t work, what am I supposed to do?
Thoughts??
Aug 31, 2010 @ 21:13:29
Oh do I relate to this! There is no cure. However I found that giving my daughter some control in these issues made her cooperate more. For example, she knows she has to clean up, but maybe let her decide when once in a while – before dinner, in the morning, etc. Or maybe let her chose one toy to leave out to play with briefly in the morning if she puts up everything else. And make sure you tell her she made a good decision and praise for cooperation She’s at the age where she is starting to try out independence so having some say might calm the sass! It worked most times for us.
Sep 01, 2010 @ 07:11:24
I don’t know if this will be of any help but it’s clear to see your daughter is very strong willed. I don’t know if this is a phase or if its in her personality. I don’t live with her. It’s very clear you are doing everything a good parent should and you are doing it with love. However your daughter is not a fan of timers or other measures of time that will show she has passed or failed a chore. She dislikes being given a time frame so much she will sacrifice a beloved object. ( she is already putting up a wall of defense at age 3!)
Your challenge will be getting her to do what you want and making it seem like she has a choice or is the one in control. (not a good thing from a parenting prospective) What about at bedtime instead of giving her a time limit with the reward of a story you instead let her know YOU are pressed for time but could probably read to her when she is done putting some of her toys away. She may surprise you and put all her toys away and it could totally backfire.
You have to figure out how to out smart her without her not realizing it and she seems pretty sharp.
Good luck
Sep 01, 2010 @ 07:13:15
That should read without her realizing it.
Sep 01, 2010 @ 21:20:47
The Tongginator was very much like this… never responding to time-outs or loss of privileges. I felt exasperated half the time. Then I started a love-and-logic approach with her. For example, if she doesn’t pick up her toys, that’s fine… Momma will pick them up instead, but when I pick them up, they go away. Because OBVIOUSLY I had given her too much to handle… too many toys = too overwhelming = not able to clean them up. So we would just take those away so that they wouldn’t overwhelm her anymore.
Everything had to make sense and be completely logical.
When she had a tremendous spitting problem (instead of biting, my daughter was a spitter … yes, in people’s faces), I told her “you can’t seem to remember that spitting is only for the bathroom sink, after we brush our teeth. So you are going to practice spitting in the sink until Momma feels confident that you will remember our rule.” We only had to do that three times before she stopped spitting forever.
We did lots of practicing and reminding at our house… practicing opening and closing a door properly if she slammed them. Running around the house – outside – to remind ourselves that we don’t run down the stairs/ through the kitchen when I’m cooking/ whatever. Those kinds of things. I basically took whatever behavior was undesirable, found an acceptable way for her to do it, and had her do that until she could remember the boundaries.
It’s the only thing that worked for us.
Sep 01, 2010 @ 21:22:48
Oh, and yeah… I only did this type of thing when the tricks Denise described didn’t work. Sometimes those creative ways of phrasing things and choices worked with our Tongginator… but most of the time she knew what we were doing and wouldn’t fall for it.
Sep 04, 2010 @ 18:11:46
Thanks everyone for your insight! This one has totally thrown me for a loop. Tonggu Momma- Thanks for explaining the Love & Logic to me. I thought taking away something was the logic part, but it doesn’t seem to work for her. I think we are going to have to revert to ‘practicing’ the behavior. And Denise, I will try your suggestions too!