Parent Thread

Need help with a situation.

My wife and I never hit/smack/slap my daughter, nor will we ever. We also try not to raise our voice to her in anger (I've done it twice, both to the HUGE of absolute shock on her part, which is exactly the point).

Anyway, for the past few (upwards of 6) months, my daughter slaps. I don't know where she learned it, but she does it ALL the time. She loves to slap my wife and I any time we ask her to do something she doesn't want to do. We've tried holding her hands and forcing her to keep eye contact with us. She screams as if we're killing her for that. We've tried putting her in time out. More screaming. We've tried flat out ignoring that she's there. She gets annoyed, but that's about it.

Nothing we do seems to have any effect. She continues to slap us. Any suggestions?

That's the other thing. She has NEVER once said sorry to me. She skates around it by giving a hug or whatever, but she has never apologized. Any suggestions for that one?

Sounds like my son. He hits us/the dog with sticks and toys, as well as throwing them. Might not sound too bad, but try getting hit with hard plastic 1-3 lbs toys with edges and corners. Lost my cool and yelled at him once because he pegged me in the temple really fucking hard. Dunno where he learned this at. Maybe watching the wife throw balls for the dog? Hell if I know. But he's not quite 2 yet, so I don't see how time out is even possible - not like he'll understand and chill in place for a few. Tried doing the stern voice/daddy's mad voice but that has no effect. I shake my head when he's doing something wrong (or is about to) but he's just started this thing where he throws himself on the ground for like 10 seconds and cries real loud (really he does that now ANYTIME he doesn't get his way - guess we got an early start on the Terrible Two's).

I'm with Xarpolis - what the hell do you do when spanking isn't on the table?

Give him a little slap. It's not abusive. It's not even violent.

The problem with spanking is the pain aspect. That's not the functional part of spanking. The functional part of spanking is the disapproval. If the disapproval doesn't work then hitting them harder isn't going to work either. There is no more clear / succinct way to communicate that message than a slap/spank. You really can't always "tell" them and expect that they're going to either understand or give a shit. Wearewhat weare. Sometimes the monkey has to do.

Now I'd argue that for a boy, teaching him pain tolerance is a good thing. You don't need to be beating him bloody with a belt, and fuck you if you do and fuck you twice if you think that's what I'm saying, but there are physical realities to life and sometimes things HURT. A father doesn't need to do very much on that front for a son (life itself will do the heavy lifting), but to do nothing in an attempt to wish away an unpleasant reality is a disservice to the child. The anticipation of pain is part of the pain and that's a part which you can cope with mentally. A child will start to cry in anticipation of being spanked. Every last one of us has seen the adult expression of that fear.

It's not the spanking that they're crying about. Never hit a child in anger. Sometimes the child will benefit from being hit. And I don't mean beaten.

A little slap is not child abuse and it need not conflict with your morals. It is the most direct feedback and communication you can give to an unruly child. Over time they should manage to realize that certain actions are met with disapproval and begin to avoid those actions. Unless they're just fucking with you, and then you're out of luck. You're gonna have to do way worse than spank them to modify their behavior.

Don't let it get to the point where he's hitting you with hammers. Discipline isn't pleasant on either end of it. Make sure to always tell him, "This hurts me more than it's going to hurt you." Your dad wasn't lyin when he said it!

I have nothing against spanking as a tool, and I agree with much of what you say. Unfortunately, it simply isn't an option for us, so I need to figure something else out.

Maybe you have to do a 2yearold timeout. If he throws them, take them away for a few minutes. I mean over the course of a week or so he should -probably- figure out what's going on. And he'll throw fits and hopefully figure out that he's not getting what he wants by throwing the fit and throwing a fit takes too much energy and makes him sleepy and feel bad.

I mean that's what the books say. Children and small dogs tend to bark at me.

There are very few times (like count on one hand) when my daughter was hit and it was all done by my wife, usually as a result of already being told more than once to not do something and then do it anyway. I've read more than one source that says hitting as discipline isn't effective in trying to teach a child that is hitting/throwing/biting things is bad. We fortunately never had this issue but I know friends that have and it's not easy to deal with when they are at a very young age. At 2 years old they may be old enough to understand what it means to have something taken away from them and I know my daughter to this day still hates that (these days is taking away not playing with her friend across the street). Basically the discipline has to be something where they will 'remember' what happens if they do wrong.

Yeah, if I had a daughter I wouldn't even slap her. I dunno what the fuck I'd do. Buy her a pony and dump her discipline on my wife most likely.

And full disclosure, I am childless. It's all drawn from interaction with other parents, their children, and a cursory study of partially relevant books. Kids are their own bag and girls are different than boys. The closest hands on experience that I've had with it is a (much) younger brother. I used to smack him occassionally when we were both kids, and it was quite effective in modifying his behavior. But one day I realized that it's not something that I should do.

But I mean spare the rod and spoil the child. If they're really starting to displaybadbehaviors... a little slap and a little cry isn't the worst thing that could happen to them. In fact the entire argument is that it's a lesser evil.

I can't vent this on facebook or people will think I'm targeting them (and I actually would be), so I'll vent here. I should also put this in the rustle jimmies thread as well.

Dear Parents, if you are giving your kids medication for a recent illness or if they are hacking up their left lung and you have been cooking dinner on their foreheads for the last few days? That is a sign that they should not be allowed out of the house and definitely not around other kids who will most assuredly catch their lung gonorrhea. We play by the 24 hour rule strictly, and it pisses me off to no end when we send our kids to places where other kids are, and some dumb ass parent has their sick ass kid there to infect everyone. It's like people refuse to be and to let their kids be sick. Drives me insane, and yes I am currently dealing with Thing 1 feeling like dog shit, with Thing 2 most likely to follow next week. Yay me.

Kids are infectious before they show symptoms, it doesn't really make a difference. It is a dick thing to do just because the kid feels awful and should be resting, but they probably aren't infecting your kids. At least not anymore than they would have anyway.

Could be, but it just seems 100% of the time if they go to a function with kids that have x y and z symptoms and/or A disease, my kids have the same thing a few days later. And it's all because parents won't let their kids be sick, and yes I agree even if it's not the case kids should be home getting better not running ragged, not allowing their bodies to recover.

It's what I really hate about daycare. Marie spends Monday and Tuesday there, and manages to grab anything that goes around.

Pretty harmless stuff so far but one of the mothers is very anti-vaccinating so we're going to see what else she can drag in!

Ok people, give me some advice on kids and sand. Mother-in-law bought us a sandbox, but our kid is 14 months old, we're fairly certain he will just try to eat it and he's too young for it. I'm thinking we should wait until next summer to bring it out when he is 2, he should be able to handle it better then. Any of you remember at what point your kids were ok playing in sand?

A little sand won't kill him. He will absolutely eat some. But he probably won't eat much, and the texture will be awesome for him to play with.

chaos_sl said:

A little sand won't kill him. He will absolutely eat some. But he probably won't eat much, and the texture will be awesome for him to play with.

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This. My son still occasionally eats dirt - so? Make sure you keep it covered though, or you may get cats using it as a giant litter box, and that can be a problem.

joeboo_sl said:

Ok people, give me some advice on kids and sand. Mother-in-law bought us a sandbox, but our kid is 14 months old, we're fairly certain he will just try to eat it and he's too young for it. I'm thinking we should wait until next summer to bring it out when he is 2, he should be able to handle it better then. Any of you remember at what point your kids were ok playing in sand?

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Pretty sure you just got told to quit being a pussy and let your kid eat some sand.

Poor joeboo.

I just didn't want to deal with a kid with sand in every orifice of their body, lol.

sounds like a good activity for playtime with mom...