All right, if someone has advice (specifically people who have raised children and not killed them prior to them reaching age six) they can give me it would be appreciated.Graice is getting to be a real handful. Beyond the fact that she is extremely loud, loves to smother her brother by hugging and hanging all over him, and doesn't like to eat her dinner, she is really having problems in social situations. I may have mentioned before that she likes to control everything when she is playing with her friends. Well, yesterday a little girl from our neighborhood who goes to school with her came over to spend some time after school. When I got home I learned that Gracie had purposely spit in this other little girl's face. Now, I'm one of those people who really believe that you need to take care of issues immediately. Unfortunately this had occurred long before I got home from work. Angie had scolded her and I had a long talk with her about it. I think Gracie understands that this is completely unacceptable.
The question I have doesn't revolve around just this episode, but around Gracie's overwhelming "alpha-wolfness" when it comes to spending time with other kids. She seems to need to dictate what they do, when they do and for how long and we can't break her from this behavior. When she gets mad she does stupid things like spitting or throwing a fit, or stomping off to her room, ignoring her guest. How do we get into her head what the correct way to act is? It is so frustrating.
She is such a sweet little girl, but she can also be a little brat sometimes. She has taken to stomping off to her room whenever we try to talk to her. She has gotten very bad at talking back (not to me, but to her mother) and that really bothers me. I continue to hang stuff over her head, threatening to cancel her birthday party if she ever does anything like spit in another girls' face again. I just hate to go through with my threats but I'm afraid it is going to happen sooner than later.
If anyone has any advice, I would love to hear it. I don't want anyone to think badly of Gracie (or Angie and me for how we are raising her). I think this is just a phase she is going through but I really want to break her of it. I suppose it is just going to take some time and some tough love. I however am realizing that tough love is actually tougher on me than it is on her.
As always comments are welcome as are emails to my blog addy: lonnbristolblog@gmail.com
1 comment:
Ok, so I thought my kids were the only kids that had their own little issues. Now I have narrowed it down to Bristol kids all have their own little issues. We are not experiencing the same thing that you are, but we have our brilliant son Garrett who seems to think he knows everything already. He is going to be an arguer like his uncle Lonnie. He also does not seem to be the nicest kid when it comes to his twin sister. Mariah seems to take a lot of abuse from her brother and she thinks the world of him still. She is always worried about him before she thinks of her own wellbeing. So why is one kid so sweet and the other not quite the nicest kid on the block? HMMM! You figure mine out and I will work on your problem.
We have found a way to at least improve our situation. We have the chore bored that we have been using. We found it at Target. It is a magnetic board that is set up as a weekly calendar. It has magnets that you can place next to different categories. We try to do it every night. You can use the categories that come with it or you can make your own with a dry erase marker. What we do is give them a dime for every magnet that they earn for the week. It usually averages out to about 5 bucks. Then they have their bank that has the (save-spend-and give) sections. Once they get their money they get to pick where they want to put their money. The money that they put in the give section is what they get to give to the church on Sunday. The save section goes into their savings account and the spend goes for whatever they want. We are encouraging them to save it for Tenn. so we don't have to drop a bunch on junk there. But Garrett just spent 7.00 on something he wanted the other day. If they see something at the store we pay for it up front, and then we come home and take it right out of their bank. So then they realize it is their money and that bank gets empty really fast if they are not careful.
If we are good about it throughout the day we can remind them about the magnets and sometimes that redirects their behavior. The problem is keeping up with it.
It might be something to try.
That was a long explanation for something not very complicated.
Oh well.
Talk to you later big brother.
Post a Comment