Taming Toddlers.
There must be a million books on how to discipline toddlers and I must have read them all. Taming toddlers; The toddler years; When loving your children isn't enough (that one is hilarious - if you fancy a good laugh at bedtime then get this one, I insist!); 1,2,3 magic; Adventures in discipline.... the list goes on.
And it's not because my children are uncontrollable brats (far from it in my completely unbiased opinion). It's just that I see how so many of my generation blame their parents for all of their life failings and I am terrified that my children will do exactly the same thing to me so I read every single method of discipline technique on the market and because they all completely contradict each other, I end up using my own techniques which I am fairly sure are causing untold amounts of mental scaring to my two little darlings but I have no idea what the right thing to do is.
Take the current current form of discipline which I employ to encourage my children to behave. I threaten them continuously with 'the man'.
"Put that back or 'the man' in Tesco's will come over and take it off you."
"Look out! 'The man' is watching you."
"Don't go in there - that's 'the man's' garden."
"The man' doesn't allow children into the sweet shop."
"That's 'the man's' Thomas the tank engine".
And my most frequently used one; "Stop that shouting and get into bed or you'll wake 'the man' next door and he'll come over and get cross with you". Our neighbour next door has no idea why my children cower behind my legs whenever he says hello to them. I just tell him that they are really shy!
Yes, yes, I know it's wrong and there will be years of psychological therapy to be paid for in the future but right here and right now, it works and it is just so easy!
And in my defence, I'm not as bad as some mother's are. My sister Kate recently told me about a friend of hers who threatens her daughter continuously that 'the witch ' is going to come and take her away if she doesn't behave. Stories like this and watching episodes of Supernanny help me to feel pretty smug about my own methods of toddler taming but I do know that there is buckets of room for improvement
Luckily, I have just entered a phase in my life which I like to call the birthday party season. For some strange reason, nearly all of the children that my children are friends with are summer babies (including my own two funnily enough) and so the party season kicked off last weekend when we were invited to no less than three birthday parties (we only went to two of them as these parties are full of screaming, tantruming two and three year olds and are actually a little form of punishment for me if the truth be known. Possibly God's way of punishing me for being a bad mother - who knows)?
So for the last week my constant refrain and threat has been "Pick that up or you won't go to David's party on Friday".
"Take that potty off your head or you won't go to David's party"
"Stop spitting your dinner at your brother or you won't go to David's party."
"Get back into bed and if you get up again, you won't go to David's party."
Absolute bliss and tranquillity were a constant guest in my home last week with the added bonus that for once in my life, I didn't feel like a bad mother.
The first party was held in the local indoor playground and was actually not so bad. The little boy whose birthday it was was just hilarious and provided tons of entertainment as every time the door opened he ran over screaming with delight, his little face full of excitement as he promptly snatched the present out of the arms of his little guest and ran off squealing with pure and unadulterated glee. It was so funny as he was just so completely innocent and didn't have the deviousness or self awareness inside of him to even pretend that he was happy to see the child in question. He just could not disguise the fact that his true feelings of joy and welcome were to his present only and not to his friend. It was so funny!
The party passed without incident really. My two can be quite shy little things in these situations but were happy to just potter around doing their own thing and as they have the most enormous sweet tooth's known to toddlers and man, they found the whole birthday cake ordeal sheer heavenly. Charlotte ate four slices and even as we were leaving, starting grabbing all the left over bits of cakes from the other children's plates and stuffing them into her mouth for fear that she might have left an iota of sugar behind.
On Saturday we had Julie's party and so Friday night and Saturday morning were spent with myself and my hubby shouting things like "Do you want to go to Julie's birthday party tomorrow? Well then, put your underpants ON!" or "If you touch the cat's eyes again, no-one is going to Julie's party" and then we sat back and basked in the joy of our well behaved children.
We were the first to arrive at Julie's party and my children sat down at the table straight away and proceeded to ingest their yearly quota of sugar in one sitting.
It was being held in a community hall and I was admiring the amount of space that we had when all of a sudden the doors opened and about fifty or sixty people (adults and children) charged in. There was a DJ who started to play music but as the disco was the only thing for the children to do, they quickly got bored and each child grabbed a balloon and proceeded to absolutely and categorically belt the crap out of each other using the balloons as their weapons. Now, no-one was actually getting hurt but each child's face was contorted in the most warrior like expressions that they could muster and the room was filled with blood curdling screeches and yells.
My two kids were absolutely terrified and Charlotte flung herself into my arms clinging to me as though she was witnessing a riot that was similar only to the French revolution. Andrew was a little bit braver and stood by my side while he watched the action with a worried expression on his face. "Do you want to go home", I whispered in his ear and he looked up at me and his eyes filled suddenly with unshed tears as he said "But what about the cake?" Charlotte suddenly emerged from the depths of my chest where she had buried herself and said in a panicked voice "The cake! Mummy the cake!"
That was that settled. We weren't going anywhere until we had had eaten the cake.
After about half an hour of solid balloon rioting our hostess (Julie's mother) shouted for every to come into a circle to play pass the parcel. Excellent I thought. Something for the kids to do- maybe now they'll all calm down. But as soon as the children all settled into a circle Julie's mother shouted for all the children to get up. The pass the parcel was for the adults only. She had the package stuffed with adult type goodies that were not suitable for the little ones. I decided to get into the spirit of things and took my place on the floor in the circle which was no easy feat considering I still had Charlotte clinging to me like a drowning woman and the game commenced. I won a Riverdance CD soundtrack which was great as I never win anything but I laughed out loud when I saw that my friend Treacy had won a dog flea collar and she doesn't even have a dog (I though it was a joke gift but apparently it wasn't! ).
The next game was moving statues which thankfully was for the children but Andrew was just beginning to loosen up and enjoy the music and couldn't understand why he kept being told to stop dancing every few minutes. He just didn't get the game and at all and just spent the whole time crying with disappointment every single time the music stopped and so it was a welcome relief to me and everyone when the long awaited birthday cake finally made it's way out to the middle of the floor.
The song was sung. Julie nearly toppled into the cake that was as big as her and the slices were cut. I just had to wait for my two children to get a slice and I was out of there when out of nowhere the balloon rioting started up again, only this time more vicious and terrible that it had been before and now there were tears as children were getting hurt. Charlotte would not take her head out of my chest (my arms were aching with carrying her at this stage) to even have a taste of the cake which I think is the first time she has ever knowingly refused refined sugar since the day she was born so I decided then and there that it was time to cut my losses and leave.
Andrew had taken horrendous offence to some over vigorous tickling from some other child at this stage (so highly were his nerves strung at this point) so he was also more than grateful to leave. On the way home he said to me "Mummy, I don't think I like birthday parties anymore".
Crap! I guess it's back to 'the man' to ensure good behaviour reigns in my house again I thought. Oh well, what can you do?
That night Andrew was jumping on his bed and refusing to go to sleep. I was just about to shout out that the man next door was after calling over to say that he couldn't get to sleep and was very cross when my hubby suddenly stopped me and said "Leave this to me. Andrew! Get in to bed right now or first thing tomorrow, you are going to go to another birthday party."
We didn't hear a peep all night.
And it's not because my children are uncontrollable brats (far from it in my completely unbiased opinion). It's just that I see how so many of my generation blame their parents for all of their life failings and I am terrified that my children will do exactly the same thing to me so I read every single method of discipline technique on the market and because they all completely contradict each other, I end up using my own techniques which I am fairly sure are causing untold amounts of mental scaring to my two little darlings but I have no idea what the right thing to do is.
Take the current current form of discipline which I employ to encourage my children to behave. I threaten them continuously with 'the man'.
"Put that back or 'the man' in Tesco's will come over and take it off you."
"Look out! 'The man' is watching you."
"Don't go in there - that's 'the man's' garden."
"The man' doesn't allow children into the sweet shop."
"That's 'the man's' Thomas the tank engine".
And my most frequently used one; "Stop that shouting and get into bed or you'll wake 'the man' next door and he'll come over and get cross with you". Our neighbour next door has no idea why my children cower behind my legs whenever he says hello to them. I just tell him that they are really shy!
Yes, yes, I know it's wrong and there will be years of psychological therapy to be paid for in the future but right here and right now, it works and it is just so easy!
And in my defence, I'm not as bad as some mother's are. My sister Kate recently told me about a friend of hers who threatens her daughter continuously that 'the witch ' is going to come and take her away if she doesn't behave. Stories like this and watching episodes of Supernanny help me to feel pretty smug about my own methods of toddler taming but I do know that there is buckets of room for improvement
Luckily, I have just entered a phase in my life which I like to call the birthday party season. For some strange reason, nearly all of the children that my children are friends with are summer babies (including my own two funnily enough) and so the party season kicked off last weekend when we were invited to no less than three birthday parties (we only went to two of them as these parties are full of screaming, tantruming two and three year olds and are actually a little form of punishment for me if the truth be known. Possibly God's way of punishing me for being a bad mother - who knows)?
So for the last week my constant refrain and threat has been "Pick that up or you won't go to David's party on Friday".
"Take that potty off your head or you won't go to David's party"
"Stop spitting your dinner at your brother or you won't go to David's party."
"Get back into bed and if you get up again, you won't go to David's party."
Absolute bliss and tranquillity were a constant guest in my home last week with the added bonus that for once in my life, I didn't feel like a bad mother.
The first party was held in the local indoor playground and was actually not so bad. The little boy whose birthday it was was just hilarious and provided tons of entertainment as every time the door opened he ran over screaming with delight, his little face full of excitement as he promptly snatched the present out of the arms of his little guest and ran off squealing with pure and unadulterated glee. It was so funny as he was just so completely innocent and didn't have the deviousness or self awareness inside of him to even pretend that he was happy to see the child in question. He just could not disguise the fact that his true feelings of joy and welcome were to his present only and not to his friend. It was so funny!
The party passed without incident really. My two can be quite shy little things in these situations but were happy to just potter around doing their own thing and as they have the most enormous sweet tooth's known to toddlers and man, they found the whole birthday cake ordeal sheer heavenly. Charlotte ate four slices and even as we were leaving, starting grabbing all the left over bits of cakes from the other children's plates and stuffing them into her mouth for fear that she might have left an iota of sugar behind.
On Saturday we had Julie's party and so Friday night and Saturday morning were spent with myself and my hubby shouting things like "Do you want to go to Julie's birthday party tomorrow? Well then, put your underpants ON!" or "If you touch the cat's eyes again, no-one is going to Julie's party" and then we sat back and basked in the joy of our well behaved children.
We were the first to arrive at Julie's party and my children sat down at the table straight away and proceeded to ingest their yearly quota of sugar in one sitting.
It was being held in a community hall and I was admiring the amount of space that we had when all of a sudden the doors opened and about fifty or sixty people (adults and children) charged in. There was a DJ who started to play music but as the disco was the only thing for the children to do, they quickly got bored and each child grabbed a balloon and proceeded to absolutely and categorically belt the crap out of each other using the balloons as their weapons. Now, no-one was actually getting hurt but each child's face was contorted in the most warrior like expressions that they could muster and the room was filled with blood curdling screeches and yells.
My two kids were absolutely terrified and Charlotte flung herself into my arms clinging to me as though she was witnessing a riot that was similar only to the French revolution. Andrew was a little bit braver and stood by my side while he watched the action with a worried expression on his face. "Do you want to go home", I whispered in his ear and he looked up at me and his eyes filled suddenly with unshed tears as he said "But what about the cake?" Charlotte suddenly emerged from the depths of my chest where she had buried herself and said in a panicked voice "The cake! Mummy the cake!"
That was that settled. We weren't going anywhere until we had had eaten the cake.
After about half an hour of solid balloon rioting our hostess (Julie's mother) shouted for every to come into a circle to play pass the parcel. Excellent I thought. Something for the kids to do- maybe now they'll all calm down. But as soon as the children all settled into a circle Julie's mother shouted for all the children to get up. The pass the parcel was for the adults only. She had the package stuffed with adult type goodies that were not suitable for the little ones. I decided to get into the spirit of things and took my place on the floor in the circle which was no easy feat considering I still had Charlotte clinging to me like a drowning woman and the game commenced. I won a Riverdance CD soundtrack which was great as I never win anything but I laughed out loud when I saw that my friend Treacy had won a dog flea collar and she doesn't even have a dog (I though it was a joke gift but apparently it wasn't! ).
The next game was moving statues which thankfully was for the children but Andrew was just beginning to loosen up and enjoy the music and couldn't understand why he kept being told to stop dancing every few minutes. He just didn't get the game and at all and just spent the whole time crying with disappointment every single time the music stopped and so it was a welcome relief to me and everyone when the long awaited birthday cake finally made it's way out to the middle of the floor.
The song was sung. Julie nearly toppled into the cake that was as big as her and the slices were cut. I just had to wait for my two children to get a slice and I was out of there when out of nowhere the balloon rioting started up again, only this time more vicious and terrible that it had been before and now there were tears as children were getting hurt. Charlotte would not take her head out of my chest (my arms were aching with carrying her at this stage) to even have a taste of the cake which I think is the first time she has ever knowingly refused refined sugar since the day she was born so I decided then and there that it was time to cut my losses and leave.
Andrew had taken horrendous offence to some over vigorous tickling from some other child at this stage (so highly were his nerves strung at this point) so he was also more than grateful to leave. On the way home he said to me "Mummy, I don't think I like birthday parties anymore".
Crap! I guess it's back to 'the man' to ensure good behaviour reigns in my house again I thought. Oh well, what can you do?
That night Andrew was jumping on his bed and refusing to go to sleep. I was just about to shout out that the man next door was after calling over to say that he couldn't get to sleep and was very cross when my hubby suddenly stopped me and said "Leave this to me. Andrew! Get in to bed right now or first thing tomorrow, you are going to go to another birthday party."
We didn't hear a peep all night.
God, sounds crazy! Poor kids! Still it's a "what not to do for your kid's party" lesson. Glad we used an indoor play gym with professional entertainers! Very peaceful! We did a party at the weekend though where an uncle feltout his duty to toughen up the older kids and watch how he could make all the babies cry! Absolute idiot but no-one stopped him. Luckily he seemed to think my 2 were tough enough and left them alone. 1,2,3 Magic & time outs still rule here plus screeching like a fishwife now and again. Not proud of the last one, nor does it work very well but patience is definately a virtue!
ReplyDeleteSmall correction Rachael - It was a woman I babysat for who threatened to give her daughter to the witches - who were actually the travellers living near by!
ReplyDeleteThat man must be bloody ancient at this stage. He's been around since I was a kid!
ReplyDeleteI tagged you over at my blog! :)