Wednesday, December 10, 2008

grounded in a time out with a spanking

Help me. Somebody, please. Maybe I should be calling Nanny 911 per Feathernester's suggestion.

My child is immune to discipline. Granted, I understand that she's still only a one-year-old, but I have no idea what to do. She doesn't care a thing about time out. She thinks it's a game. Remove her from what she was doing, and she just immediately shifts gears and decides to do something else. Take away a toy, and she picks out another one to play with. Give her a stern talking to, and she does a mental eye roll and grins at you. Yell at her, and she ignores you. I even tried spanking her once (very calmly, I might add), and she literally looked at me like I had lost my marbles. I have no idea what to do. She does respond somewhat to M's voice, mostly because it is crazy deep when he gets mad, and it carries. I can imagine it's what it would be like to hear Zeus's voice thundering down from Olympus. I'd stop what I was doing, too. Of course, it only succeeds in getting her attention. She then goes back to whatever she was doing.

I am at a total loss.

I've, for the most part, been able to stop her from hitting and biting and pushing. I cannot, however, make her stop climbing on the furniture like a monkey. Feathernester and I thought that perhaps I should ignore it (as long as there was no real danger...like falling on a set of kitchen knives or something). Let her fall. Then maybe she'd learn. M has wholeheartedly disagreed with that approach, however. That makes it a little tough for me as she totally ignores all of my attempts at disciplining her.

Any advice?

I know that I've always heard to remove the object that causes the problem. That's easy when the problem is her practicing her forehand on Otis. It's just taking away a tennis racket. It's not so easy when we're talking about removing the furniture from our home. Oy.

I need a drink. Is it too early in the day for that?

6 comments:

feather nester said...

Another one of THOSE days, huh? Jeez. I wish I had something helpful to say. Maybe some of the other mamas will.

Seriously, people, she's not kidding about M's scary voice. But I think it scares me more than S.

Sarah Berry said...

I'm sure this will be useless since I have NO experience in this realm yet, but what if you put her up in her crib without any toys in there? Then she wouldn't have you and Otis around for comfort and entertainment.

As for a possible suggestion for the future, a child psychologist once told my parents that when they put me in time out it should be in the most boring place possible, like the bathroom. So that's where my time outs always were.

die Frau said...

Yeah, my dad used to fume that sending me to my room meant nothing because I had plenty of toys and books and I wanted to be in there anyway.

I've asked a few friends with girls your age to give advice. I'll let you know what they say.

Anonymous said...

I came upon your site when I was searching for "Ouiser Boudreaux" quotes. I'm a mom living in a tiny little Southern town.

Nice to meet you! :o)

But, on to your daughter.... seriously, I'd spank the child. If you beat the ever lovin' eff-u-c-k out of them (and do it right), you'll only have to do it 2-3 times in their life.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but you raise a child alone, you learn tips and tricks that work!

monkeymama said...

I have had some success with the spank spoon...really a paint stir stick from Home Depot. We had them placed on top of a door frame in almost every room in the house. It was only used every once in awhile. It became more psychological than anything. It was used with a great element of suprise! Now I count....loud. I've even tried crying(yet more psych torture...they think I am really crying). That makes them freak. Back to the counting...I rarely have to get to 3 now. They have no idea what to expect, so they try not to find out what will happen at 3. Perhaps my head will spin and I will spew pea soup. I like to keep 'em guessing...I am outnumbered,you know.

Good luck! These are trying times!

Strongmama said...

Welcome to the terrible twos! I can tell you it gets better and it gets worse. I find that time out only works in the right places, like when there is nothing else around. And it's not like it keeps J reflective and completely remorseful while he is there-- half the time he is trying to start another conversation with me. But I do make sure that it's away from toys (we have a chair in our kitchen and sometimes I just use the floor against the counter). It's tricky because you want to pick your battles, but you want to be consistent. As far as letting her hurt herself, that's always an option, but I had a friend that did that and the kid ended up breaking his leg when he jumped off of a small table in a bookstore, so would say that theory backfired on her. Keep the time outs to a minute per year of her age- it feels like an eternity. And if she just acts like nothing happened, well, you stopped the behavior and that was the goal. It wasn't so that she was miserable. If the behavior doesn't stop, then you might need to have a stronger consequence. Good luck. It's not easy, but just remember you do have a great kid who is only annoying to you some of the time. And then go have that shot of vodka. I won't tell. :)