Discipline

So apparently it's common knowledge among veteran parents that the "terrible twos" actually start around one.  Why no one tells us rookies this is a mystery to me but when I tell my veteran parent friends about E's misadventures in tantrums, mischief and being generally naughty limit testing they all just smile and say something along the lines of "yeah, terrible twos start early"

So Ken and I have been working on a discipline system that works for us.  For now, when E gives us her little 'I'm going to test you right now' smirk and deliberately disobeys what we just asked her to do we do the following:

-remind her that big girls make smart choices
-tell her what a good choice would be
-give her another chance to make a good choice
-warn what the sad consequence will be (it's a 'time out'* right now)
-enforce the sad consequence

*our version of 'time out' is that we take her to her room, sit in the rocking chair with her and talk about the choice she made and why it was a sad choice and what she should do next time.  This is all happening while she is screaming her head off for her binky or to be read to, or to be let down in general.  Then we sit with her until she has calmed down, ask her to say sorry, then give her a chance to do the smart choice, with lots of hugs and praise when she does.  It's also usually accompanied by a short session with the binky after she has calmed down and said sorry.

On Monday we got a note from her daycare:

I had to recreate the note, I lost the original

Her normal teacher was gone by the time I picked her up.  I thought it might be just because she's teething and got over excited.  I got the details eventually:  she and another child were fighting over a toy and she leaned over and bit him!

I have NO idea where she learned biting, but learned it she has.  So Ken and I have been on the look-out for biting behavior.

Tonight during dessert  Ken was petting her hair and she was pushing his hand away and saying "no"  We are working with her to try to get her to say "no thank you" so I reminded her that we say "no thank you" and Ken pet her head again and she grabbed his hand and started guiding it to her open mouth.

Breaking what I just told her moments before I let out a very loud and stern "NO!  No biting!"  She looked stunned and dropped his hand.  We took away her frozen yogurt and I reminded her that it was okay to be mad but not to be mean, and biting is mean because it hurts people and asked her to say sorry to Daddy.  Her face crumpled into the realization that she was in trouble, she tried a few times to continue eating or playing, completely avoiding looking at Ken.  Eventually we had to enforce the sad consequence.

I brought a friend to time out with us, her Cookie Monster snack keeper. It's basically Cookie Monster's head and the mouth opens and closes.  I sat her on my lap and we talked about how biting hurts.  Then I had Cookie Monster bite my finger and I made a big dramatic show of saying "ow!"  And that's when she started wailing.

While she was crying on my lap I had a conversation with Cookie.  He apologized for biting me and I gave him hugs and kisses (sometimes being a parent makes you look nuts) but E kept crying and crying and crying.  She immediately said "sorry" to Ken and gave him hugs and kisses, and kept crying and crying and crying.

I think I made my point...though I may have traumatized my child against Cookie Monster in the process of doing so.  As we were getting ready for bed she saw Cookie on the dresser and said "no!no! ow!"  and started crying again.  I tried to show her that Cookie and I were friends by giving him lots of hugs and kisses and having him kiss her and promise no more biting, but she would have none of it.  She wouldn't stop crying until I put Cookie Monster in a toy bin out of sight.

I guess he'll stay there....until the next time she bites someone.