Parenting 101

Lately, I have been scouring my parenting books. Ya know when you first become a parent...or even earlier, when you first become pregnant you get all excited and start buying and reading any parenting book or article you can get your hands on? Truth is, you probably won't need the information for a couple years. Then a couple years down the road you've forgotten what you read and are beside yourself with what to do with your toddler, so you get them all out again. A couple more years go by and again you are losing it and wondering how in the world someone let you birth a little person to be totally responsible for raising. That is where I am at. I have had 7 years of psychology/family/child training, plus almost 5 years after that of being a mother and I have found myself at a complete loss with my kids lately. There are days I feel defeated and run over by the demands of a 4 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old. They are quite a team I tell ya!
Now, it really isn't all that bad. They are generally really good kids, but there are certain "battles" that we seem to have every day, lately. For example, Brendan is totally into a certain computer game right now. There is nothing "bad" about the game, but it is totally brainless and a complete waste of a little 4 year old's time. If he had it his way I think he could spend the whole day playing it. I have set limits and he gets two 15 min. games a day....depending on behavior of course. He insists this isn't long enough and we talk and we talk and we talk, and I tend to threaten to take it away if he doesn't stop asking, so he stops for a while, but I'm not kidding, I feel like a lot of my days lately are revolving around when the poor, deprived kid can play Q-bert! That's right. Q-bert.
Now with Wyatt my hardship is nap-time. He and Brendan share a room and sleep in bunk beds. For the last couple months I have spent the majority of my nap times putting Wyatt back to bed, pulling him off the top bunk (on top of sleeping Brendan), closing the door, locking the door, pleading for him to stop talking, etc, etc, etc. Many days he has completely skipped his much needed nap simply because he hasn't stopped moving for 2 seconds to realize he is exhausted and fallen asleep. I've tried time-outs, I've tried the "Nanny" method (putting him back over and over and over without talking to him), I've even tried spanking. (If you know me very well, you know that I don't spank)
A note on spanking: After all my schooling, I knew that I would not spank when I had kids. I do think that there are appropriate ways to use this form of discipline, but with all the controversy and plenty of other proven methods of discipline, both Rand and I have refrained from spanking, slapping, pinching and other forms of punishment that require us to physically inflict pain on our children. HOWEVER, I have been driven to insanity with both of my children (both around the age of 2) and believed there may be no other form of discipline that would work. Unfortunately, spanking didn't seem to solve the problem either and I knew that I would be forced to spank over and over if I was going to choose that method of discipline, and I just wasn't willing to do that.
SOOO, that brings me to the desperation and the scouring of my parenting books. I am again reinforced that there are some GREAT parenting tips out there and alternatives to spanking if you are interested.
Here is one that I recently put into practice....
I was re-reading my "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen, And Listen So Kids Will Talk" book. A good reminder of how I do and do not want to talk to my kids. (You can get into bad habits so fast and without realizing it!) One of the books alternatives to punishment was Problem-Solve. Low and behold tonight I had the perfect opportunity to try it out. Bed time isn't usually much of a battle, but for some reason tonight it was for Wyatt. He cried and cried and wouldn't stop crying. Rand put them to bed because I was out for a walk, but this shouldn't have been a problem. He puts them to bed lots. So when I came in Rand was in the process of guarding their shut door (a consequence we've used to discourage talking, playing and whining once we leave the room. Generally it works, as they do not like having their door closed at night). We waited for them to be quiet for a bit so that they could earn their door re-opened. I decided to go in and give some love and attention. A good thing to rule out first. Make sure they aren't just needing some cuddles. However, after a good time of cuddling and talking about the good things about the day, Wyatt burst into tears again when I left the room. I had to stop, because I wanted to yell out, "No more crying!! It's time for bed." OR "If you can't stop crying and lay quietly I'm going to have to shut your door!" If we were parents who spanked I may have threatened a spank or gone in and given him a swat to get him to stop and obey. Luckily I stopped myself and decided to try something different and see if it worked. Here's how it went down, play by play.
Method #1: Problem-Solve
Me: (calmly walked into the room and sat on Wyatt's bed) Wyatt, we have a problem, don't we? You want Mommy to stay in the room with you, but Mom wants some alone time and needs some rest. Do you think we could come up with a solution to solve this problem?
Wyatt: (sniffling) Yeah.
Me: Okay. What could we do? What could we do to make this better?
Wyatt: I could stay up late (it was already an hour past bedtime)
Me: Okay, that's an idea. What else?
Wyatt: You could take me back to the splash park. (I'm shocked he's participating this well with coming up with solutions, even though there is no way we're doing either of these things)
Me: Okay. I have an idea. I could leave your door open and you could lay quietly. Or, I could close your door if you want to cry. (Brendan pipes in at this point)
Brendan: I have an idea! You should leave the door open and we will fall back to sleep.
Me: Yep. That's an idea. (Wyatt starts to cry because he thinks I'm going to leave.)
Me: OOO, I have an other idea! I could give you your lantern by your bed and you could quietly look at books until you get tired. (Jack Pot!!)
Wyatt: Yeah!
So, I got him his lantern and I heard him quietly looking at books. Not another peep out of him! Now he is sleeping and I'm so glad he fell asleep feeling heard and cared for and not defeated and sad. And I don't feel defeated either. I feel like I succeeded. I stayed calm, I stayed in control and we both walked away happy. I achieved the desired behavior without punishment and tears. I just totally diffused a battle! I hope it works this good every time! Chances are, it won't, but it is definitely worth a try, don't ya think?