- Stay on the balls of your feet – You gotta be ready to move. The second you’re caught off balance and flat footed, disaster is going to strike.
- Control the hips – It’s all about the core; you can’t trust the extremities. If you’re holding an arm or a leg or something, you might as well not be holding on at all. I learned this one during diaper changes. If you want a struggling kid / slippery eel not to move, you gotta hold on to the hips.
- It is important to center yourself before conflict – If you’re not zen going into a situation, then things are going to go bad fast. This isn’t just for physical conflict either, it’s doubly true for head-to-head power struggles with your toddler. Your mental health is a tenuous balance at best when you have small kids, but it’s important to hold it together as much as you can, or everything else is going to suffer.
- The best defense is a good offense – Get out of the house! Don’t put yourself in a position to fail. Occupy your kids before they get a chance to even think of mischief. Sometimes it might seem easier to just sit back and handle things as they come, but you always end up regretting it.
- The bigger you think you are, the harder you’re going to fall.Enough said.
parenting
Imagination
There is nothing Evie likes more than playing pretend.
The downside is I have to play Cinderella. The upside is, Sara (excuse me, the wicked stepmother) got Cinderella to clean up all the dried mud the stroller had left around the front door.
She was really down there on her hands and knees, really scrubbing too! This has lots of potential…
Testing…1, 2, 3
3 year olds…hoo boy!
Everything you’ve ever heard about a 3 year old being a tyrant is totally true. We’ve entered into a very difficult phase lately, where every minute of every day becomes an opportunity for a power struggle.
Obviously it’s all about testing limits and seeing how much power she has. Everything you ask her is, “No!” or “I won’t ever! Never ever!” She won’t eat what’s for supper. She won’t go potty. She won’t get ready to go, she doesn’t want to go. She does everything she can to pick a fight and she’s pretty good at it.
It is extremely frustrating, and not only for the obvious reasons. It turns out that she actually DOES have a lot of power. She can really make things difficult for us. And, it turns out, our aura of authority is actually quite thin when pressed.
This results in a LOT of timeouts (hence the brilliant pun in the title of this post). But the thing is, I know that A) this behavior is completely normal (and expected) at this age, and B) this is ultimately helping her grow into her own person. So, while writing this blog post at night when she’s sleeping, it’s easy to sit back and view it with an impartial eye. However, in the moment, it is madening.
Timeouts are useful to give Sara and I time to regroup. Another useful technique is to switch off frequently between the two of us. As soon as one of us detects that the other is getting frustrated, we try to switch. It is amazing what a difference this makes for everybody: the frustrated parent gets to leave, the non-frustrated parent usually has a better, less passionate view of the situation, and Evie reacts much more positively to the new parent. Of course, she usually manages to frustrate the other parent pretty quickly, but you can only do so much.
We also try not to set her up to fail. This means getting her as much sleep as possible, and not going out in public if we can help it. She’s much easier to manage at home (she completely sees the power she can wield by having a fit in public, don’t think she doesn’t), and she tends to “show off” by demonstrating her power when other people are around.
The problem is, timeouts are becoming less effective. Part of testing limits is testing our ability to punish her. Timeouts now usually involve chasing her around while she laughs, and then her refusing to stay in timeout. (Although, it’s pretty clear that her laughter and apathy towards timeouts are just an act…she usually laughs and says, “I don’t care!’ for a few seconds before it turns into crying) We usually salvage the situation, but just barely (she says she won’t stay, and she might leave a few times, but usually she ends up staying put after all). It’s like she’s tearing the veil away and revealing that we really *don’t* have all that much power (I don’t know what we’d do if she really just wouldn’t stay in timeout. I guess that’d be the end of timeouts).
I’m trying to remember to use different things for motivation, besides just timeout. For example taking away a toy for a period of time or having her “miss an opportunity” to do something she likes, like getting in the bathtub before I start the water. I’m also trying to have more positive rewards than just negative punishments. For example, “If you do X, I will tell you a story” (she loves hearing stories) instead of always “If you don’t do X, I will put you in timeout”. However, it’s hard to remember all of this when she’s really pushing it. Timeout is still my go to, gut reaction punishment.
Still, we’re not eliminiating the timeouts. My mom pointed out that testing limits is also testing consistency. So we try not to change things up too much. For example, hitting is always an instant timeout. So we don’t let her get away with it in some times and not others. It’s always a timeout, even if timeout is not that effective at the moment.
The key to this is not painting yourself in a corner. Don’t threaten things you don’t intend to follow through on. Because then you really can’t do it, your threat is meaningless, punishment is inconsistent and your entire punishment regieme becomes suspect (“If you don’t stop that right now, you’re not going to school!” is a pretty empty threat).
The funny part is, every parent always says, “You think that’s bad, wait until she’s X [years old]”. When she was a baby, they said “Wait until she hits the terrible twos!” When she was two they said, “Oh, that’s nothing, wait until she’s three!” Now they’re saying, “Oh, 4 is even worse!” And, of course, there’s always, “Wait until she’s a teenager!” It seems like every challenge just prepares you for the next, harder challenge.
Oh well. We’re trying to do what we can to get through it. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is just a stage, and it’s only temporary. Oh, and also, the fate of the rest of her life hangs in the balance if we don’t handle everything just perfectly.
(Side note, based on the text of this blog post, WordPress thinks I aught to tag it “safe sex”! That’s some smart tag recognition! If this doesn’t motivate you for that, I don’t know what will.)
Monster
Evie has just been turning into a monster lately. She gets this look in her eyes, and you just know she is looking for trouble. She goes from one thing to another so fast, that you haven’t even finished telling her not to do something, when she’s already doing something else naughty.
It’s just so weird to see how she is so actively looking to be naughty. I’m not worried about it, I know it’s just a phase. Probably some combination of tiredness from not taking naps, just the age she’s at (the terrible 3’s?), and attention seeking due to all the changes going on, especially starting school. But it sure makes for a frustrating day! By the time she goes to bed, we’re exhausted.
Speaking of a turnabout, the other day we were at the 57th St. Children’s Book Festival, and there were costumed characters there. In the past, Evie has been terrified of such things. This time, however, Evie saw a character she couldn’t resist: Martha from Martha Speaks of all things.
We’ve read some of the books and she’s apparently seen it on T.V. (though I haven’t), but this is far from one of her favorite things. I wouldn’t have even recognized Martha, but Evie did and ran right over to stand next to her. She wouldn’t get that close, but far closer than she had ever been to a costumed character.
After that, it was like the floodgates broke. She proceeded to follow Martha and 3 other costumed characters the entire length of the festival. It was like a parade, with Evie in the rear. Every time they stopped she would sort of mill about with them, and then follow once they started again. Sara and I are in the back of every kid’s picture, since we were forced to follow along behind. When the characters got to the end of the festival and turned around to go back the other way, I literally had to grab Evie and pull her away. She looked and me joyfully and said, “We’re going back the other way!” She seriously thought she was somehow part of the fun with the characters, like she had to do her part.
Better than being scared to death of them I guess.
We’re clearly starving the poor boy
Oliver has been very interested in food for a while. If you are holding him and trying to eat, he will try to dive bomb any food that comes anywhere near his face. So finally we gave in and let him try some stuff.
The first thing we really tried was to give him some chunks of apples to gum up (eating is vastly less effective when you don’t have teeth). Every time he got a hold of a piece he would cackle maniacally, like he was really getting away with something. It was like he just couldn’t contain his glee. It was hilarious. After that we tried a few other times. The first time we put him in the high chair, he was again giggling like it was the funniest thing ever.
It is too stressful for me to watch him eat. I’m on the edge of my seat, adrenaline pumping through my system, ready to give him CPR at a moment’s notice when he inevitably chokes himself. He was stuffing this breadstick so far into his mouth, he would gag every time. But he still kept at it, like he was having a grand old time. I guess that’s how you learn.
With the way he attacks food, you’d think that we weren’t feeding him enough or something. However, he’s not going to fool anybody with that, considering he’s the size of a one year old. It’s just so odd since Evie was so ambivalent towards food. Oliver is anything but ambivalent.
The other funny thing about it is how lazy he is with his hands. If he can get away with not holding the food or bringing it to his mouth, he will. If you just try to help him get a better grip, he will drop his hands away like, “Oh good, you’ll be feeding it to me from now on.”
If you want it so bad, get it yourself, lazy bones!
Shane Halbach 