I really appreciate all your thoughts on this.
I think there are times in every parent's life when they wonder exactly what they should do. This is one of mine.
Witch Hazel - the hurt is a good idea. Little bear is actually very loving and quite gentle, but I am scared of doing the emotional blackmail/guilt trip thing. I am worried I will get it wrong. However I will see if sometimes that can work, case by case.
I definitely think he is getting over stimulated with too many treats and I need to really ration some of his screen time - hopefully by getting him out of the house.
I still absolutely love him to bits.
2 comments:
I think you just have to start defining your limits and what you expect from Little Bear. And to understand that intelligence doesn't equal emotional intelligence.
Interesting that you feel you have to say that you still love him. This is something I'm working on in therapy - that having a conflict with someone doesn't mean they don't love you any more.
I'm glad you're making sure that LB still feels loved even when he's being punished for being naughty.
Although I don't advocate their methods, there is an American couple who wrote a book called To Train Up A Child (i think) based on Old Testament principles. They advocate using a "switch" as in a small stick on the back of the legs when the child is naughty, so I'm not suggesting you read the book or anything like that - BUT my point is that they do clearly separate the child from the child's behaviour, and say that the parent and child should hug and go back to a good relationship between themselves once the behaviour has been punished and the child has said Sorry.
We must all be clear with our children when we are talking with them that saying, "That was a silly/bad/naughty thing to do/say" is much better and should be preferred over saying, "YOU are silly/bad/naughty" - the child knows that it can change its behaviour by stopping DOING the offending thing, but it doesn't know how to stop BEING bad etc. I hope you see what I mean.
We all know that you love LB completely! That is abundantly clear, so don't worry about that. My children know that I love them too, but that doesn't stop me shouting when I trip over something left lying around, or find dirty washing all over the bathroom floor!
Must stop waffling now - HUGE HUGS!
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