A month or two ago, Paige was getting into trouble a lot. She seemed to be on a mission to test the boundaries, and that often involved touching the stove, the dishwasher, or the cat (often in ways that made Ella yell), poking us in our eyes, etc. And so we'd tell her to stop several times, she'd resist, and she'd ultimately end up on time out. Depending on how often she'd been bad that night (and how much energy we had), she sometimes would have to say "sorry" before she could leave time out. That might take anywhere from 3 minutes to a half hour.
However, one thing that we always did is that when she left time out, we'd make her look us in the eyes while we said something like "the reason you were on time out is ____." And, more often than not, the reason was "...you weren't listening to Daddy." Or Mommy, as the case may be.
I think that as a result, "not listening" to mommy or daddy has become the Cardinal Sin in our household. Now, if she's misbehaving, we will usually ask her to stop once or twice. If she doesn't respond we will then, with a hardened voice (but still not shouting), say "Paige, you're not listening to Mommy." And usually...I'd say 4 out of 5 times...she will almost immediately change her behavior. It's not absolute, of course--she's two. But she's become much better about listening to us when we ask her to do something. And, as a result, she's only going on time out once or twice a week these days instead of the once or twice a night like she was just a few weeks back!
Parenting is fun when it works.
2 comments:
Poking us in our eyes? I don't recall that one. Maybe it was more grabbing for your glasses.
She has been getting a lot better. Usually now when she's not listening to us the tv is on or she has some kind of distraction. If we just remove that distraction from her (turn off tv) and then tell her she's not listening then she will usually snap out of it.
She definitely went through a phase where she liked to put her fingers on or in my eyes. Sometimes it was when sitting on the couch, and sometimes it was when I was singing to her at bedtime. -j
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