A lot of official “parenting“ is centered around
correcting Townes’ behavior these days. I’ve
talked about this before, but he just can’t quite seem to avoid being
naughty with Daisy. For a while, Townes focused on “bonking” Daisy directly on
the head or pushing her down. Lately, he tends to plow into her while riding
his balance bike. We try to be matter-of-fact and focus on the behavior rather
than labeling little man as being “bad” or yelling at him. The discipline drill
involves removing the bike immediately and putting it in the kitchen behind the
toddler gate. Here is a typical exchange:
T: I WANT it daddy. (half-spoken, half wailed).
Tim: You can’t have it. Do you know why it’s in the kitchen?
T: Because Townes run into Daisy. (Then he waits a beat and with genuine remorse) Why Townes DO that, Daddy?
After we let him stew and/or cry for a bit, we’ll chat about it and make sure he knows that hurting Daisy is a “No, no”* and then give him a hug and tell him it’s ok to be sad since we had to take away his bike. But he also gets the point hammered home AGAIN that hurting Daisy is not ok and that’s why we have to not play with the bike for a while. When I’m in charge if Tim isn’t home the offending item stays sequestered until daddy gets home. Then Tim can ask Townes about it once more before we return it to him. I’m hoping this technique will modify his behavior sometime prior to his leaving for college.
Poor little D as the second child seems to be learning her language skills mostly by osmosis. You really do listen with bated breath for every word your first child speaks, but once there are two of them-- there just isn’t the time to focus. Townes is in the same boat too of course, but he had our undivided attention all the way up until he was exactly Daisy’s age. Luckily, Daisy is such a little light, unending in her forgiveness of our jackhole moves. The other day as I was wandering around the house getting everything together to take the kids to the playground she was standing in the middle of the living room, bouncing a little bit on her toes repeating over and over: “Thweada. Thweada. Thweada.” For like 5 minutes. Like a tiny, little yogi repeating a tiny little mantra. “Thweada. Thweada. Thweada.” I’m bustling about, giving her distracted, general, completely nonspecific responses “Daisy, Thweada? Ok, Dais-“ just thinking she’s babbling nonsense to herself. She gets louder and more insistent, “THWEADA! THWEADA! THWEADA!” and then louder still, with a determined, frustrated focused glare in my general direction, “THWEADAAA!!! THWEADDAA!!! THWEADDDDAAAAAAAA!!!!!” As I turn from double-checking the backpack for diapers, I suddenly realize. “Daisy. Do you want a sweater, sweetie?” Giant scowl immediately melts into big, goofy grin. Yep. Just need my sweater, dummy. What’s a girl gotta do? Help ME help YOU, mom.
*No No Yes Yes, by Leslie Patricelli has been a pretty spot-on in helping little man see the differences between what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Simple illustrations and straightforward messaging.
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