Miss Emily

Emily is at both a gorgeous age and one that totally does my head in. How a two year old can have this much attitude at such a young age I have no idea! For the last week I've heard "my turn!" and "No, mine!" at least a thousand times.

And the drama! If you move something to the wrong place, or you try to help in any way, you'd think the world was ending. There's head down, face burried in her hands, thrashing about and screaming.

But tonight I just had to laugh. Emily has a couple of 'babies' that she has really taken to playing with lately. Every night while I'm cooking the dinner she lines them up, reads them a story, and then one by one changes their nappies. At first I had no idea what she was doing when I saw this.....

Apologies for the poor photo. Just after I tried to sneak this pic with the IPhone she totally cracked it at me for daring to take a picture of her!

Yes that's right, she has socks on her hands. But to her they're not socks, they're gloves and every time she changes her babies nappies she has them on. At childcare they read stories to the toddlers and change their nappies with gloves on. It seems Emily has created her own childcare center in our living room and it's complete with a naughty corner. While I was having a shower this morning I heard her telling one of the babies to "sit here!" and "Sshhhh!". I think she might have got that bit from me......

I'm totally loving her embrace of this new make believe world. It reminds me of when I was her age and everything was fun and a game. She has no idea of bad things in the world, of loss, of sadness. All she know is eat, sleep, play and love.

She is learning new words every day and mumbled sentences are starting to become clear. She now has friends at daycare who wave to her through the window when we arrive. A little red headed boy named Dean rushed over to us yesterday and said "Emawee ball!" and gave her a green ball. She was absolutely delighted and turned to me and said "bye", waved and ran off with him. It was totally adorable.

I know it won't be like this for long and I'm totally going to soak up every moment of it.

Nobody's Daughter

On the front page of The Border Mail today (our local newspaper) was a story about two teenage girls aged 14 who broke into a house and several cars in my parents street. It happened at about 4am and these girls had a mother, home alone with her children, cowering in the bedroom while they ransacked the house for car keys, money and iPhone. 


The headline of the story is Family in fear as home ransacked but girl, 14, is....Child No One Wants. I don't know these girls and what their backgrounds are, but I have to ask the question, where the hell were their parents and what were they doing roaming the streets at that time of the morning? I truly believe that if your under the age of 16 and the sun is down, you should not be roaming around unaccompanied by an adult. It's not just for our safety, it's for theirs too. 


Stories like this raise the question of whether parents should be held accountable for their child's actions. Clearly in this case one of the girls parents is refusing to take her back. On the one hand I say teach this rat-bag a lesson and let her sit in detention for a couple of days until she realises how serious her crime was. On the other hand I truly feel sorry for her that she has no-one showing her love and trying to help her with her behavioural issues. 


This girl is barely a teenager, probably has no idea of the terror she caused this mother and her two children, as well as the rest of the street who heard the commotion and woke to a street full of police the next morning.

Last year my sisters were travelling home to Canberra from my place after Emily's 1st Birthday party. They had decided to put the 5 children they have between them with their partners in the Torago, and get some sister time and peace and quiet for half the journey home in my older sisters Ford. As they travelled up the main road a 13 year old girl came straight through a give-way sign and hit them side on pushing them into a telegraph pole head on. The force of the accident was huge and we were so lucky that air-bags deployed and injuries were not too major. Luckier still that no one was killed and that all the kids were in the Torago behind them. 


This 13 year old girl came from a single parent home and her mother worked night shift. She had an eight year old friend in the passenger seat and they wanted to buy lollies from Coles and watch DVD's for the afternoon. Their mother, who was exhausted after pulling a 10 hour shift the night before, refused to take them to the supermarket so while she was asleep the girl took her mothers car. 


The actions of that girl had such a domino affect. She was charged with several offences and had to appear in juvenile court. Her mothers car wasn't covered by insurance as the driver was an immediate family member and unlicensed. It also didn't cover the damage to my sisters car. This single mother already struggled to make ends meet and now she was down a car and had to pay costs for damage done by her daughter. 


This mother did nothing wrong. When she arrived on the scene her primary concern was that her daughter wasn't injured and that no one else was seriously hurt. She was doing her level best to nurture and bring this girl up in a decent environment and I remember her commenting that the behaviour was unlike her daughter. 


Teenagers think they're invincible. They have raging hormones and often act before thinking. How can we ensure they stay safe and do the right thing? I remember what I was like and if I'd made up my mind that I wanted something, no one was going to stop me. How do we ensure that our youth understand the consequences of their actions and should we hold parents accountable when they break the law? Do we leave it up to the magistrate to make individual calls depending on circumstances or do we have a blanket rule for all? 


What do you think? 

The Smack

Did you watch 60 minutes last night? I did and I wasn't shocked at all by the amount of debate it has raised today.

The story was whether or not we should smack our children. If you missed the story you can watch it here....
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8465814/the-smack 

After this story I had to admit I was torn on the issue. I admit I have smacked Emily. This is not something I'm proud of. As a parent you can sometimes feel at your wits end repeatedly saying no over and over again with no positive response. Sometimes she would even look at me and laugh. I justified in my head that smacking was OK if she was going to hurt herself (i.e. strangle herself with the blind cord or burn herself on the stove).

After watching last nights show I really sat down and thought hard about when I smacked Emily, why I smacked her and what effect it had on her.

Hubby hardly ever smacks Emily. When he says no she listens. Why is that? Why is it that when I say no she pushes and pushes until she's pushed all my buttons?

I thought about the various types of punishments we have dished out in our house and what has worked most effectively. At the moment the 1,2,3 and then a time out in her room seems to be the most effective. My hubby likes to hold her close when she's having a tantrum and remove her from the room until she's calmed down and initially I thought this was awful. I'd watch her scream and squirm in his arms completely frustrated. However it works. Eventually she stops and now he only has to say a stern "no!" and she stops the bad behaviour as she knows Dad means business. Geez I hate it when he's right!

I thought about Emily's response each time I smacked her and the first time I did it she was shocked (and so was I) and she cried. Now days she either bites or scratches me in return so I think what I've taught her is that it's OK to be violent when you don't like something.

Looking back on last nights program there was a young man who was featured in a 60 Minutes program some years ago on the same subject. His Mum consistently hit him with a spatula and his response years later was very interesting and thought provoking. He said that he found it hard to respect someone who didn't respect him as a child. He felt she didn't respect him because she hit him. She pointed out that they are from different generations and would naturally disagree on this issue. This may be true. But she inadvertently pointed out that as the new generation of parents we can learn from our parents mistakes.

I remember when I was 12 or 13 I was really testing the boundaries with my parents. I would sneak out, deliberately disobey, play one of against the other. I was a mean, mean girl who had lots of hormonal angst and God help me if Emily does to me what I did to them! (She probably will and more since I believe in Karma) This one particular day I had my mother in tears and my father just couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed my arm and smacked me hard. This was probably the second or third time I was ever smacked (and the last) and my response was to run away. Probably not the response my parents hoped for. They wanted me to behave. Instead I did the opposite and ran from the house and kept going until I'd walked right across town and to a friends house. Obviously my friends mother did the only responsible thing she could do and called my parents who immediately came and got me. I look back on that moment now and think I must have pushed them beyond their boundaries to feel they had no other option but to smack me. However I also know that the smack didn't get the positive response they wanted from me.

Physics law says if you put a positive and a positive together you get a positive. If you put a negative and a negative you get a negative. It makes sense that if I want a positive response from my child I should use positive reinforcement.

How do you discipline your child? I'm really interested to know what other Mums and Dads do and does it work?