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.
I think you got that pretty well sorted – Kids will mostly tend to push limits, some more than others, and frankly it’s good that she does: the kind that won’t push any limits aren’t going to do well in life – you have to allow some limit-pushing but you also have to make the point that you can’t always get away with it, and that sometimes, (as with hugs) you can’t get what you want right away. Sounds like you made the point and it’s good that you ended up with understanding and forgiveness from both you and her.
A friend of mine count 1, 2, 3. But it’s laid down right from the start that it never goes beyond 3. The actual counting speed is variable, though. From my observation of my friend, “1” is “I want you to do [action] NOW”, “2” is “I’m not joking, I really want [action] done, and not after you do something else”. “3” is “you’ve used up all the time I’m prepared to allow before [action] is done, now there WILL be consequences” – consequences could be anything from physical punishment to loss of priveleges. I think the physical punishment has been largely removed, since the young man it was applied to started to ignore it – this happens pretty soon. It’s kind of a parental patience-meter: once you get beyond 2, you’re on borrowed time… and you don’t know how soon 3 will come; 2 and 3 can be delayed if there are signs that [action] is receiving attention, but the count doesn’t reset: if they start doing [action] but then stall or get distracted, the count carries on from where it was, which makes the point that it’s finishing [action] that was important, not starting it.
For example, in your story, “1” would have been the beginning of the first count, 2 would happen at some point in the “can’t get onto the stool” sequence, and “3” would have been I guess at the point that, in your case, you got to the end of the third count – where patience had run out.
The advantage I see in this over your 10, 9, 8… is that if they know that you can get to zero and start over, that becomes another boundary to push: “let’s see how long mom is prepared to go on counting…”
If you made it known that there are no second counts, 10, 9, 8… only happens the once, it might work better; you can always slow down when you get to about 3, if you want to allow them a bit more time to comply. If you see genuine attempts to comply, for example, rather than stalling. Or speed up if they’re obviously not taking it seriously… and if they say “hey, no fair, you speeded up”, you have 2 possible answers: 1) life’s not fair, learn to live with it or 2) you don’t complain if I slow down…
SoccerGirl is my limit pusher. Everything from brushing teeth (a twice a day struggle) to helping out with chores to being nice to her brother to being nice to the cats to wearing hat and gloves and boots for snow to NOT threatening to eat mommy.
(yeah, we have officially banned cannibal jokes now. 🙂
It’s so awfully tiring… but, when we stick to our guns, things do eventually get better. eventually…. sigh.