Testing the limits
Gleek was over-the-top today. Every slight frustration was met with an ear-splitting shriek. Every argument was ready to be an all-out fight. And she spent a considerable amount of time being deliberately provoking to various people. I finally had to put my foot down. Link and Patches were playing a whiteboard game. Gleek kept using a finger to erase sections of what they had done. I asked her to stop twice. Then I told her that if she touched the board again, she would have a time out. She took a finger and touched the board in a clear space. It was a very deliberate act of testing the limits. She had done exactly what I told her not to do, but she was finally not damaging her brothers’ game.
Every time Gleek pushes at the limits I set, I have to decide whether or not to push back. Sometimes bending the limit a little results in a compromise that satisfies us both. Other times Gleek justs steps into the space and pushes against the limit again. and again. and again. Today she’d done a lot of the latter. I realized it was time to apply consequences. It is not that this particular limit was important, but the lesson that limits are to be respected is a very important one.
I picked up Gleek and carried her (yelling and writhing) to the kitchen. I sat her on a stool and announced that she had a one minute time out. She instantly hopped off the stool, but did not flee the kitchen. She is expert at just barely defying me so that I might let her get away with it. I put her back on the stool. She hopped back off (still yelling and crying.) I told her I was counting down from 10* and if she wasn’t on the stool when I finished, she had two minutes instead of one. She began to almost hop up onto the stool repeatedly. It was as if she was suddenly incapable of climbing onto the stool by herself. I got all the way to zero. Gleek had earned herself a second minute. I started counting down again. She tried her best to make me believe that she couldn’t get onto the stool. She earned a third minute that way before she actually got onto the stool. Then she turned all soft and small wanting nothing more than hugs from mom. I told her that hugs had to wait until the time out was over. Whereupon she filled the kitchen with top volume wailing.
Once the time out was over, I picked up Gleek. She clung to me with all her might. I sat with her on the couch and snuggled her close. With Gleek more than any of my other kids, I see how much children need and want their parents to set limits. She depends upon me to curb her behaviors when her impulses carry her away. I struggle to find ways to help her learn how to curb them herself. That’s why I wrote a story for her last year. I pulled it out again tonight and read it to her. She snuggled close and listened with rapt attention as I read how Amy gets carried away by her ideas and then learns to control them.
“Amy is like me mom.” Gleek said quietly halfway through. “I’m always in trouble too.”
I hugged her tighter, glad that she now has this story as a doorway to let us talk about these things. I’m even gladder that this book will finally get printed in the next few months. It’ll be nice to have a book to read to her rather than just loose pages. Hopefully the story will help her as she tries to curb her impulses that run wild.
*I always count down instead of up. If I start at one, the kids may not be sure if I’m headed for three, five, or ten. If I start from 10 and go down, they know exactly how much time is left.