parenting

Kiki has decided that Gleek is the most annoying person in the world. I could chalk it up to normal sibling rivalry and wait for them to grow out of it, but I’m disinclined to do so. In my growing up years a sibling relationship with issues nearly tore my family apart and became physically dangerous more than once. I was an observer, not a participant, but it was terrifying to us all. I can’t/won’t sit and wait for things to get better because my experience teaches me that worse is just as likely. My strategy for improving their relationship is as follows:

1. Gleek is frequently annoying because she is starved for attention. She is a high-energy person in a house full of introverts. We all spend a lot of time trying to convince her to leave us alone for awhile. I’m going to have to give up some of my introvert time and actively spend time with Gleek. She needs more stories, more games, more tickles, more snuggles, etc.

2. Kiki is allowed to complain about Gleek so long as she does not do it where Gleek can hear. Not even Kiki can control what she feels, but she can control what she says and where. Anytime she says something hurtful where Gleek can hear, then as part of the apology Kiki will have to say two nice things about Gleek to Gleek. In the interests of fairness this new rule will apply to all people in the household.

3. Kiki has to compile a list of 50 things she likes about Gleek. This is a direct consequence of yesterday’s incidents which brought this problem into focus for me. We’re going to come up with 3 things each day until we have a full list. Once she is angry Kiki has trouble coming up with even one nice thing, even when Kiki and Gleek were playing wonderfully only minutes ago. I need to help her focus on positive things instead of negative.

4. I will provide Kiki with as much Gleek-free space as I can manage. This is difficult because they share a room, but we’ve already made a few helpful adjustments.

5. I’m turning the Mommy Radar sensitivity way up when the two of them are together. Right now it does not take much for Kiki to go ballistic and explode and so I have to be right there to intervene until the other measures have had time to work some attitude changes. In fact I’m just turning it way up when Gleek is near anyone. I paid attention today and every single sibling squabble which occured involved Gleek. Gleek is not beligerent, she is headstrong, and the other kids do not have the skills they need to deal with her. I’m going to have to actively intervene long enough for the other kids to pick up some Gleek management skills. My intervention will also help Gleek develop more trust that she will be listened to without resorting to screaming or hitting.

6. I’m going to help Gleek do some overtly nice things for Kiki. This will give Kiki some things to write on her list.

7. I have to stop letting Gleek bend and break rules simply because she’s worn me out and I’m too tired to stop her. Kiki sees this and it makes her angry/resentful. Kiki then displaces the anger to Gleek because Gleek is a safer target than Mom.

So that’s the plan. I re-read it and it exhausts me. I don’t want to have to do all of that. I don’t want to give up more of my mental, emotional, and physical energy. But they need me too and I dare not fail them. Parenting is like juggling and I’ve just added 7 more balls to keep in the air. This means I’ll be dropping something else. Not on purpose, but I simply can’t do everything all the time. Being a good parent is knowing which ball is okay to drop today. I can catch it on the bounce right?

Today I read this article: (http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?sid=158841&nid=5) It is an example of alarmist marketing.
“Statistics show that roughly 2,000 children are reported missing every day.” That is probably true, but they fail to mention that the vast majority of those “missing” children are at a friend’s house, with a friendly relative, asleep behind the couch, or have some other benign reason for not being where they were expected. Most of the kids who appear on those Missing Children mailers have been abducted by a parent in the course of a custody battle. This is heart rending for those involved, but does not reflect the risk to the average person’s child at all.

Next statement: “Police say the first three hours are the most critical after a child is taken.” This is a true statement. If a child is truly abducted by a “friend” or, much more rarely, a total stranger then the first hours are critical. Having your child’s picture and vital statistics ready to hand CAN be a big help the police greatly. So the idea of carrying the info with you is a worthwhile one whether you choose to keep a photo in your wallet or a USB stick on your keychain. Unfortunately most parents go through the effort once and then, feeling secure, fail to update the photo and info regularly.

What bothers me most about the article is the way that they imply that child abduction is an imminent threat to ALL children. This simply isn’t true. Child abduction with the intent to harm the child is rare. Parents do not need to live in daily nail-biting fear that someone will steal their child. What parents need to do is take proactive steps to minimize their risk. Identity kits are a good step. Teaching kids how to evaluated and talk to strangers is another. Evaluating all the adults whom you allow to have unsupervised access to your kids is yet another. Talking through with kids how to react to a threatening adult is a great idea. Reading Protecting The Gift by Gavin De Becker is a fantastic place to start. There are so many things that parents can be doing to make their children safe, but unfortunately many parents just wring their hands and sleep poorly at night instead.

Gleek had a nasty case of croup last night. There is nothing more terrifying that watching your child struggle to breathe; unless you’ve seen it a dozen times before and you own a home nebulizer for administering albuterol, then it is only alarming. We had about 30 minutes where we were actively treating her and entertaining the idea of a trip to the emergency room. Then the crisis was over. It is nice to not panic when faced with croup, but it isn’t so nice to realize that I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve dealt with it. Since croup usually strikes between midnight and 3 AM, we didn’t get much sleep. Even once the emergency was over and Gleek was back asleep, I still woke up every time she coughed or even breathed funny. Part of that could have been because she was in bed with me and was coughing/breathing right next to my ear, but mostly it was the mommy radar on high-alert status. Sometimes croup goes for several rounds in one night, fortunately not last night. Unfortunately further rounds with croup are highly likely in the next couple of nights. We’ll be taking preventative measures, but nighttime mommy radar will be in alert status for several days, so my sleep is likely to be interrupted.

Ear infections are the other ailment that I’m far too familiar with. 3 out of my 4 kids have a genetic suceptability to them. (Inheirited from me.) If you read literature on childhood health care, you’ll know that ear infections are considered a common childhood ailment because most kids will have one before age 4. That’s common? What about one a month all winter long until you put tubes in? Supposedly kids outgrow ear infections by age 3. Tell that to 7 year old Link who is currently suffering from his third infection this winter. My treatment of ear infections would proably be made much much simpler if I had a good otoscope for peeking in thier ears. Then I could be peeking in ears regularly and giving preventative decongestants when I detect fluid. Unfortunately good otoscopes run over $150. There are some discounted ones available on ebay or other internet stores, but I’m reluctant to plunk down money without being able to test whether the device is worth the money spent. The most frustrating thing about ear infections is that the standard treatment for them is antibiotics. Unfortunately doctors are no longer supposed to prescribe antibiotics sight unseen. So even though I KNOW the child has an ear infection and I KNOW they’ll be prescribing antibiotics, I still have to drag multiple children to the doctors office for an hour of “No don’t touch that!” and I get to pay a $20 co-pay for the priveledge of doing it. Then I get to drag them all to the pharmacy where I pay full price for an antibiotic for which generic is unavailable. At least now all my kids are old enough to tell me that their ears hurt. Babies just cry while their mommies have to guess why.

Since three is an aesthetically correct number (3 fates, 3 wishes, 3 act plays) it seems appropriate that I finally got my thyroid test done this week. My levels came back mid-to-low normal. This means that I can’t blame my lethargy and weight gain on my disfunctional thyroid gland. Instead I’ll have to blame it on not exercising and eating too much. It was so much nicer to think it wasn’t my own fault. On the other hand it is good to know that my thyroid condition hasn’t worsened. Now I just need to make exercise happen every day so that I have the energy to do all the other things in my life that I’ve been too tired to do. Speaking of which, I need to do something other than sit at the computer now.

The following analysis is mostly for my own reference, but maybe someone else will find it useful/interesting.

Patches tantrums are very straightforward. They pretty much occur because he wants something that some one took away or that he isn’t allowed to have. He’s still small enough that I just pick him up and carry him elsewhere. Once we’re elsewhere, I provide a distraction and usually that ends the tantrum.

Gleek has spectacular tantrums. They usually occur when she has it in her head that things should be a certain way and then they aren’t. (Mommy should be here, I want fudge, That’s mine!) I can usually see the tantrum coming in Gleeks escalating levels of upset and sometimes I can head off the tantrum. My current favorite tactic is to say “Okay it’s my turn to be Gleek!” then I demand whatever it is that she wants and she has to be mommy and try to explain why I can’t have it. That tactic has been educational for both of us. I’ve learned that mostly she doesn’t listen to my explainations and just considers my decisions arbitrary. She’s learned that mommy DOES have vaild reasons for saying no. Sometimes I’m tired or Gleek is particularly headstrong and the tantrum can’t be dodged. Then we have kicking and screaming. I’ve learned that the tactic of holding the child until they calm down is NOT a good idea if the child is Gleek. She gets increasingly more upset and escalates quickly to deliberate punching, directed kicking, and biting. I just don’t think I’m strong enough to hold her without allowing injury to her or to myself. Truth is I haven’t found a tactic that I really like. I generally resort to shutting her into her room and telling her to come out when she has calmed down. Unfortunately she either doesn’t hear the instruction or completely disregards it, because to actually get her to stay in her room I have to stand by the door and hold it closed. She then kicks and pounds the door for awhile. Eventually she shifts from anger to fear that I’m really angry and that I’ve abandoned her. I think she is also frightened by her own out-of-control emotions. Once we reach that point I can go into the room and snuggle her into my lap and we can start discussing the incident. We talk and I appologize for any behavior of mine which might have been over-the-line (like yelling). I require appologies from her for the tantrum and any hurtful things she may have said (Like “I hate you mommy”). Usually long before I feel calm and resolved she hops off my lap and runs off to play as if the tantrum hadn’t happened at all. Then all is well until the next time.

Link doesn’t tantrum often and when he does he usually calms himself without intervention. He’s always been that way, even as a baby. On the rare occasions when he doesn’t calm himself, all I have to do is walk to him and talk to him calmly and he’s old enough to pay attention. It happened that way just this evening. I walked in and told him “You’re behaving like a toddler. A seven year old boy doesn’t need to wail at the top of his lungs to get what he wants. Please calm down” He answered “I can’t stop the tears.” my answer “I don’t expect you to. When we’re sad, we cry. We can’t control that. We don’t want to because being sad is natural.” I then clarified that wailing and tantruming are a different thing from sadness and crying. Wailing is trying to force everyone else to pay full attention to your sadness, generally because you want them to fix it. (This isn’t true for a younger child, for them sadness and wailing are inseparable.) Since Link was no longer wailing I gave him some sympathy for the cause of his sadness, then Link decided to have some quiet time in his room until his sadness passed. Five minutes later all was well.

Kiki’s tantrums tend to be long, involved, and emotionally exhausting for me. When Kiki is overwrought even the smallest problem is blown-up to a giant size and wrangled over. I’ve discovered that having an audience (me) actually exacerbates the situation. The more that I sit there being supportive and reasonable and helpful, the more she will yell and cry and be upset. The best solution is usually for me to leave her alone until she’s worked through the emotion. Then she is ready to talk and I can help her tackle whatever set off the tantrum in the first place. Most of the time I don’t even have to help. Once Kiki is calm she usually solves her problems by herself.

Sigh. I need to go help resolve a tantrum upstairs.

I recently posted a pair of comments in my sister’s livejournal that I’d like to have in my own for reference. Also I think some of you might find them useful/interesting.

My Potty Training Theory:
The first thing about potty training that many people don’t realize is that it
isn’t a single skill. Self toileting is a whole raft of skills that must each be mastered individually:

terminology- understanding the words to describe the experience.
being able to undress by yourself
being able to redress by yourself
how to sit on toilet/potty chair
recognizing the need to pee
witholding the pee until on the toilet
relaxing and letting the pee go
regognizing the need to poop
witholding the poop until on the
toilet
relaxing and letting the poop go
prioritizing potty above this
interesting toy
wiping
flushing
handwashing

There may be skills I’ve forgotten to list. The point is that expecting a child to master all of those skills at once is a bit much. To me, a child is not really fully potty trained until they are able to do all those things by themselves and I am completely uninvolved with their potty-process. Gleek is still working on some of these skills (mostly wiping, flushing, handwashing, and not needing company) and she is 4. Most kids will not fully master the whole list until around 5.

I’ve said that I’m not working on potty training with Patches, but I guess that isn’t true. Right now we’re working on terminology and on the concept that “big boys poop in the toilet.” Probably the next thing will be undressing, but I’m in no hurry. Potty training should be a learning adventure in which mommy and child are exploring and mastering skills together. If the toilet becomes a battlefield no one wins.

What has happened with 2 out of 3 kids so far is that I work on skills and then I decide it’s time and I make a big push toward skill mastery. The charts and underpants work for awhile, then it all falls apart and I get tired of cleaning carpets. At that point I put diapers back on and gave up. In both cases about 6 months later I glanced up and the child had decided to potty and wear underpants all by themselves. With my encouragement they never went back to diapers or pull ups again. So my plan for this time around is to teach and work on skills then let them go for a bit, then work for a bit then let it go. Two steps forward, one step back, we’ll get there eventually.

My discipline Theory:

There are two ways to stop an unwanted behavior.

The first is to remove the motivation that drives it. For me this is the prefered method, it usually stops the behavior almost instantly and the behavior stays stopped as long as the motivation is gone. Identifying the motivation can be tricky at times and unfortunately sometimes the motivating factor is irremovable. A parent can’t stop flinching when things are thrown at them and a child’s desire for amusment/attention is fulfilled by the flinching. Finding other sources for amusement/attention will definitely help this behavior.

The second method is to attach a consequence to the behavior. The consequence needs to be applied very consistently so that it ALWAYS follows the behavior and the child knows that it will. And the consequence needs to be significant to the CHILD. Knowing the motivation behind a behavior is important in choosing a consequence so that you don’t unintentionally reinforce behavior you want to disappear. If attention seeking behavior is given a consequence which requires lots of attention (like sitting on a chair), then you’ve reinforced the behavior rather than extinguishing it. Also the consequence needs to not punish mommy. If applying the consequence is too unpleasant for you, you’ll put up with the behavior rather than enforce the consequence.

Finding a balance is sometimes tricky. I found it a
particular challenge with Gleek because it was so hard to find a consequence
which actually mattered to her. I had to resort to spanking during her toddler
years because there was no other way to extinguish some of the dangerous
behaviors she was prone to. Fortunately now that she is older there are more
consequences that work for her and we’ve found better solutions.

All that rambling aside, it sounds to me like you actually have a really good action plan in place. You just need to stay consistent with it long enough for Alex to make connections in his head. Toddlers have poor impulse control and few reasoning skills, so much of their training has to be very pavlovian in nature.

One month ago today I declared a New World Order at the Tayler House. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sandratayler/58783.html) I thought it would be appropriate to examine how well I’ve done at maintaining it.

1. I’ve been better about requiring kids to do their morning things and one chore, but not consistent every day.

2. I’ve been much better about not doing kids work for them. It means “Saturday Morning Work” usually takes most of the day, but at least I’m not the one doing all the work. Kiki took 6 hours to fold a basket full of laundry and moaned about it the whole time, but she did it without any help and the next time I bet it won’t take as long and there will be less moaning.

3. Kitchen helpers have been more missed than hit. I have been grabbing kids and asking for help more often, but not requiring focused effort from a single child on a particular night. I still feel like this is a good idea, but I may need to re-assign the nights because of some schedule shifts.

4. Quiet time went really well for a few days, then Patches started being resistant and everyone got sick so I gave up. I need to give it another try because I really think it was working. I may need to limit Patches involvement to 5 minutes though because he is so young. Sometimes the best answer is to be patient until kids are older.

5. We’ve played the Tayler Family Game exactly once. Between illness and Howard’s scheudle and other random events we simply haven’t made time for it. Once we’ve weathered the Gwavaman event that has Howard buried I’ll see if I can’t make it happen.

So in all, not perfect, but not too bad either. I do feel like some things are more in my control. The point of the new world order is to make family life run more smoothly over the long haul, sometimes that means ignoring it for short periods of time and then reinstating it. Time for me to refocus myself yet again and make it happen.

As I was driving home from dropping Kiki at school I was musing on the United States educational system. Many people feel that it is failing. I don’t and I just realized why. Most people percieve that it is the duty of public schools to give kids an education. Re-read that sentence, then focus on the word “give”. Education can never be given. Education is always earned. The opportunity to educate CAN be given and IS given every day at every level of our public school system. I’m in my kids’ public school twice a week. Every time I am there I see marvelous people working as hard as they can to provide for the needs of the kids in that school. I see all kinds of extra help being offered to kids whose parents don’t seem to care. I’ve seen kids who are convinced that their poor grades are punishments handed out by a teacher who doesn’t like them rather than just rewards for lack of effort.

All over the world there are millions of parents who would literally die to get their kids into our public school system. We need to be taking advantage of our opportunities and counting our blessings not complaining because we don’t think we have been given enough.

This evening went really really well. This shouldn’t surprise me because I’ve focused on the implementation of my plans for several days now. The true test will come on a day that I’m tired and distracted.

Link loved being Kitchen Helper. He came running the first time I called and did all the work willingly. In fact he and Gleek had a fight because she wanted to help and he wouldn’t let her because he was the official Kitchen Helper. Somehow I doubt this level of enthusiasm will continue, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

The kids loved the game. They enthusiastically ran through the house trying to find out whether we gained points or lost points. I think I might alter the rules to make it a co-operative game rather than competitive. Rather than keeping individual scores we may just see what the cumulative family score is. Then I can institute a plan where if the family score is above a certain number, then we get a special treat of some kind (Ice cream, brownies, something.) So far it has also had some of the larger effects I’d hoped for as well. Link picked up his clothes off the floor and put them in the hamper because he doesn’t want to lose points next time we play. I figure I’ll give things five days to a week and then we’ll play again.

After carefully orchestrating Kitchen time, Homework time, and Game time I am worn out. Unfortunately I still have to do Bedtime. Howard once told me that I had an effective bedtime system in place with the kids like marionettes. All I have to do is pull a few strings and off they go. It may look like that from the outside, but to me it feels like herding hyperactive cats using only limp spaghetti noodles.

Last May I instituted some significant changes in how I ran the house and the kids. I called it the NewWorld Order and wrote and entry about it. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sandratayler/2004/05/30/)

Our lifestyle has changed significantly since I put those new rules into effect. The kids have grown and changed, Howard is home alot more, I’ve neglected my duty to maintain the law, and so it is time to institute another New World Order.

The first step is to be more dilligent enforcing the rules I put into place last May. The kids need to be doing their five morning things and one chore every day. I need to make sure they don’t get to play with electronic entertainment or friends unless they do.

The second step is for me to stop doing their Saturday morning work for them. I’ve set up the system. They know what they have to do before they can play with friends or electronic stuff. If I help, I end up doing most of the work while listening to complaints about how they need help because it is too hard. If I refuse to help I’ll have about 2 weeks of whiney unpleasantness and then they’ll do their work solo without complaints because they know that complaints just add to the length of time without reducing the work load. (I’ve gone through this process before and yet I keep forgetting and helping too much.)

Those steps are simply reinstituting things I’ve been enforcing more often than not for the last 9 months. Here comes the new stuff.

Step three. Kiki, Link, and Gleek are each assigned a night to be the official “Kitchen Helper”. The Kitchen Helper sets the table for dinner, helps prepare dinner, helps clean up after dinner, helps load the dishwasher, and helps sweep the floor. I’ll never have kids capable of doing these things if I don’t spend some time and effort teaching them.

Step four. Every day I need Gleek and Patches to have a quiet time where they practice sitting still. I’ll start at about 2 minutes and gradually extend the time. While they are sitting still I’ll read from pictureless storybooks so that they learn how to sit still and listen. This is specifically aimed at teaching them how to be calm and quiet in public places like church.

Step five. I’ve spent some time creating cards for a game over the past few days. The game is Tayler Family Trivia. On the cards are questions like “Where do we keep the scotch tape?” or “How do you clean a toilet?” Each correctly answered question gets 5 points. There are also Bonus cards. Bonus cards say things like “Get 5 points for every empty garbage can in the house” or “Get 10 points if you did your 5 morning things today”. There are also Oh No! cards. Oh No! cards cause people to lose points for household infractions “Lose 2 points for every piece of your clothing left on the floor” I intend to introduce this game tomorrow. Then we’ll play it again in another week or so to see whether we can improve our scores. Hopefully the game will have kids noticing when they put clothes on the floor or if garbage cans are empty. I read an article on this game by a woman who said it made a huge difference in the behavior of her two kids.

Two old things and three new ones are more than enough for me to try to keep track of. Especially since I’ve got to maintain things like homework enforcement, regular meals, and regular bedtimes.

Taking Gleek and Patches to public places is an exercise in balancing disturbances. Every minute I have to balace the disturbance caused by a particular behavior with the disturbance caused by attempting to quell a particular behavior. I never have the option to cause no disturbance. No wonder I opt to stay home from things so often.