Hurting the Ones She Loves
The best way to keep Abbie out of trouble is to prevent her from getting into situations where she can misbehave. This means putting crayons up so she can’t draw on the walls, locking the dog kennel so she can’t eat dog food, and moving every chair out of the kitchen so she can’t climb up to the marshmallows in the freezer, unless of course she pulls a chair in from the hallway, which she usually does.
The concept of using discipline to reinforce that a behavior is bad still doesn’t work with Abbie. I still scold her every time she shoves a brother to the ground, but the way she ignores me or occasionally laughs as I admonish her reinforces in me that she doesn’t get it. Sometimes she’ll give me that warm fuzzy feeling by crying and signing “sorry,” but the thud of a brother’s head hitting the ground is never far behind.
Without discipline, I can only do so much to prevent Abbie from misbehaving. I can’t keep her brothers out of her reach, so I, and I suppose they, have to accept that she’s going to make her brothers scream periodically. She needs to learn to socialize with other children eventually anyway because there’s no way I’m home-schooling her.
Besides hurting her brothers, one of Abbie’s worst transgressions is destroying her books when I’m not looking. She destroys bindings, rips paper pages, and pulls apart board pages. She can obliterate a lift-the-flap book in less than three minutes. She has more books in the landfill than she has left in her library.
Despite her destructive tendencies, I still give her free access to her books. The only time I remove them is when I want her to sleep instead of reading and ripping her books. I feels wrong to do anything discouraging her from reading, especially with so many messages touting the power of books as the key to mental development, and if you don’t help your child read as often as possible, you’re essentially condemning her to a lifetime of delivering newspapers for a living. Occasionally I’ll take a book from her when she starts tearing it as punishment, but recall that punishment doesn’t work. As soon as she gets it back, she starts attacking that same loose thread of paper.
Something inside me snapped recently. Maybe I was sick of picking up tiny scraps of shredded book off the carpet. Maybe I’d thrown away one too many formerly beloved books that I’d hoped to share more with the boys. Maybe I finally recognized some of the deceased books as ones I’d bought new instead of at a garage sale or received as gifts. Whatever it was, I decided Abbie no longer has free access to her books. They now spend most of the day on a shelf above Abbie’s closet, beyond her view and well outside her reach, at least until she learns where we keep the ladder. The only time she can look at them is when I pull them down before naptime. That way I can supervise her book time instead of ignoring those tearing sounds coming from her room while I pull the boys out of the pet water.
It’s been a few days, and Abbie is taking the change well. Yesterday she came up to me while I was doing dishes, and drug me back to her room while furiously signing, “book.” I told her no, explained that she destroys her books, and returned to the dishes. She complained for a minute before shifting to a non-destructive activity, like jumping on her bed. Otherwise the complaints have been minimal. As a bonus to her, she’s getting to read some of the fragile books I’ve been storing out of her clutches like those with paper pages or flaps. She’s really enjoying her “Elmo’s Dangling Flap and Intricate Pop-Up Extravaganza” book.
I hope to give her free access to her books again someday, as soon as she learns to treat her books with respect, or at least to not intentionally destroy them. As course as soon as she hits that stage, her brothers will be at prime destructiveness. Maybe by that time she’ll be adept at defending herself and her possessions, though hopefully not by shoving her brothers to the ground.
The concept of using discipline to reinforce that a behavior is bad still doesn’t work with Abbie. I still scold her every time she shoves a brother to the ground, but the way she ignores me or occasionally laughs as I admonish her reinforces in me that she doesn’t get it. Sometimes she’ll give me that warm fuzzy feeling by crying and signing “sorry,” but the thud of a brother’s head hitting the ground is never far behind.
Without discipline, I can only do so much to prevent Abbie from misbehaving. I can’t keep her brothers out of her reach, so I, and I suppose they, have to accept that she’s going to make her brothers scream periodically. She needs to learn to socialize with other children eventually anyway because there’s no way I’m home-schooling her.
Besides hurting her brothers, one of Abbie’s worst transgressions is destroying her books when I’m not looking. She destroys bindings, rips paper pages, and pulls apart board pages. She can obliterate a lift-the-flap book in less than three minutes. She has more books in the landfill than she has left in her library.
Despite her destructive tendencies, I still give her free access to her books. The only time I remove them is when I want her to sleep instead of reading and ripping her books. I feels wrong to do anything discouraging her from reading, especially with so many messages touting the power of books as the key to mental development, and if you don’t help your child read as often as possible, you’re essentially condemning her to a lifetime of delivering newspapers for a living. Occasionally I’ll take a book from her when she starts tearing it as punishment, but recall that punishment doesn’t work. As soon as she gets it back, she starts attacking that same loose thread of paper.
Something inside me snapped recently. Maybe I was sick of picking up tiny scraps of shredded book off the carpet. Maybe I’d thrown away one too many formerly beloved books that I’d hoped to share more with the boys. Maybe I finally recognized some of the deceased books as ones I’d bought new instead of at a garage sale or received as gifts. Whatever it was, I decided Abbie no longer has free access to her books. They now spend most of the day on a shelf above Abbie’s closet, beyond her view and well outside her reach, at least until she learns where we keep the ladder. The only time she can look at them is when I pull them down before naptime. That way I can supervise her book time instead of ignoring those tearing sounds coming from her room while I pull the boys out of the pet water.
It’s been a few days, and Abbie is taking the change well. Yesterday she came up to me while I was doing dishes, and drug me back to her room while furiously signing, “book.” I told her no, explained that she destroys her books, and returned to the dishes. She complained for a minute before shifting to a non-destructive activity, like jumping on her bed. Otherwise the complaints have been minimal. As a bonus to her, she’s getting to read some of the fragile books I’ve been storing out of her clutches like those with paper pages or flaps. She’s really enjoying her “Elmo’s Dangling Flap and Intricate Pop-Up Extravaganza” book.
I hope to give her free access to her books again someday, as soon as she learns to treat her books with respect, or at least to not intentionally destroy them. As course as soon as she hits that stage, her brothers will be at prime destructiveness. Maybe by that time she’ll be adept at defending herself and her possessions, though hopefully not by shoving her brothers to the ground.
posted by Matt at
11:59 PM
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