Very interesting thread! I am a huge offender of being all talk and no follow-through AND yelling to get my point across :oops: I read an article that talked about how raising your voice, and giving the same direction over and over simply makes you background noise to your children (which makes you want to yell even more!).
Recently, I’ve been concerned about teaching responsibility, etc… My DS is an only child, and I think I’ve been a bit overindulgent, and a bit low on expectations (chores, doing things for himself, etc…)
I think I’ll put some of the advice I’ve gotten from this thread into practice
I thought I knew a lot about parenting until I became a teacher. My son is also an only child. We went through some interesting times when he was about 5 and had the benefit of access to a behavior therapist. He is what I would consider a model child now. But it isn’t easy, and you can’t really do it alone. You at least need to have people to vent to!
If it makes you feel better, my son is 13 and I just taught him this past weekend how to do laundry. I just didn’t have a choice. Working two jobs until school gets out and the laundry needed to get done. He was a pretty good sport about it.
Consistency is the hardest! Oh and the not getting angry. I believe very strongly in dispassionate response. Of course the nicest part of being dispassionate a lot is when you finally let loose about something, it really gets their attention! :shock: :roflhard:
Everyone talks about the terrible 2’s but I think 5 1/2 was by far the worse…I had a developemental book and it even talked about the 5 1/2 to 6 stage…I will try and find the book…it was great.
However, the most important thing is to be consistant but it is also important to say to the child when punishing them…I love you, it is the behavior that I don’t like and/or it is the behavior that is wrong.
With one of my boys age four was the worst. Weird. He was an easy kid and then went through a patch at four that was not much fun. My grandson who is nearly six is at the moment being a poop. Must tell my son about this being common! He’s been a bit worried.
Thanks to all for this thread. Interesting and useful! samm
