I have really been trying to work lately on keeping my cool with Annika; on teaching her instead of reacting to her. Today she did a lot of things that pushed my buttons. A biggie was hitting Katia on the head in the exersaucer to make her cry. I first comforted Katia, then sat Annika down on the couch.
(sidebar: I've been using the phrase, "You hit, you sit." Annika is into rhymes lately. Yesterday when she had to sit, she said, "If you lie, do you have to sigh?")
I told Annika, If you feel like you want to hit, come over here and hit the couch. Got it? (I got to release my own frustration by demonstrating). Then we practiced several times. "Let's pretend you want to hit," and I'd bring her to the couch and have her hit it. I told her, "When you stop yourself from hitting Katia and hit the couch instead, that's self-control." We had to practice self-control a few other times this afternoon too, for other issues.
7:30--Zac comes home from work. Annika is all overwound from having friends over for dinner while Zac was working late. When he picks her up, she acts like she's about to bite him, then kisses him instead. She tells him, "Daddy, I have self-control now!" and tells him all about what we practiced today. Amazed, Zac says, "You sure do have self-control now!"
Let me tell you, that made my day. Tomorrow at MOPS we get to hear a talk on "How to Behave So Your Children Will Too." Here's hoping I get some more ideas where that one came from.
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We had a few days when Daniel was biting Eva's fingers. We were getting really upset about it, and we couldn't come up with a punishment strict enough to make Daniel stop. We were even ready to try spanking.
Finally, though, it occurred to me that something about biting her fingers was rewarding to Daniel, and we should try teaching him a replacement behavior. Instead of biting, we told Daniel to kiss Eva's fingers, and then we praised him when he did.
After that we didn't have any more biting.
Little kids do seem to do much better when told what TO do, instead of what not to do. That was one of the main suggestions of our MOPS speaker today.
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