*hey lovely readers- I wrote this a while ago but I guess I forgot to post it! better late than never…
Happy New Year!
I can’t believe it is 2011. This month marks the eleventh year since Mike and I got together, the sixth year of our marriage, and entering the third year of being parents to the amazing life force that is Yona. This is also the year of the birth of our second child, who I have been started to feel swimming around in my belly. I’m about 22 weeks now. We don’t know if this baby is a boy or a girl, although I had a very vivid boy dream last night. Feeling very grateful for the blessings in my life.
We just emerged from the holiday break. My office was closed and I kept Yona out of daycare for the week. We had a full and busy holiday of activities- we went to the Science Center, the ROM, and Yona saw her very first play- Free to Be You and Me- at a small community theatre near our ‘hood. We also had lots of playdates, time with family, time together. Some big transitions to report- Yona stopped nursing! Its probably more accurate to say that I stopped nursing her, because I am sure that if it had been left to her, I would be nursing two kids come May. That idea didn’t feel super appealing to me, and I was realizing that I had exited the stage of enjoying nursing. So I decided to wean her. We had already instituted an “evenings only” policy last November, and there were even some days when Yona wouldn’t ask to nurse at all. Mike and I talked about it, and a friend suggested launching the initiative with a Big Girl Party. So Yona & I went to the store and she picked out a Big Girl cup, and we made (healthy) cupcakes together for her Big Girl Party, which we held with her cousins a couple of weekends ago. These strategies were great, but we still had a number of days when Yona would ask to nurse and I would tell her no, and she would cry. I found this hard. I can only imagine how strange it must be to have open access to nursing for your whole life (what a comforting thing nursing must be!) and then suddenly have it stopped. But I also knew that I was ready for this stage to end, and that my body was craving a break before starting over again with Baby #2 in a few months. After a few days, Yona mostly stopped asking. When she does ask, she does it jokingly, knowing I will say “no, you silly girl” and we will cuddle or play together instead. So- thus ends the last physical connection I had to newborn Yona. It feels bittersweet but right.
Other Big Girl transitions include the great adventure of Potty Training. Yona’s been using the potty for a while now, but has also been in diapers. She has been really wanting to wear underwear for a long time and we got her some. She was so excited and proud to wear it and wore it to school yesterday. Four changes of clothes later…let’s just say it is still a work in progress but I am proud of her. It’s super sweet how excited she is about it, and she insisted on taking all ten pairs of new underwear with her to school for “Show and Share”.
And….discipline. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the best disciplinarian. First of all, I find it really hard not to laugh sometimes. I also don’t really believe in being too strict…Mike & I don’t want to impose too many rules or restrictions on her. She’s a fun loving, good kid and sometimes gets silly. But we both agree that Yona needs our help establishing certain boundaries, and we know we want her to be a person who is considerate of others, understands the importance of sharing, and knows that aggressive or violent behaviour is not acceptable. So when she started hitting and kicking (mostly me) lately, we decided to explore some strategies for setting some limits and curbing certain behaviours. A long time ago, I published what was apparently a controversial post about a book called Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. I still think Alfie offers a lot of food for thought. My sister in law recommended a few parenting books on empowering kids to make good choices by Barbara Coloroso and Alyson Shafer to check out, which I hope to do. Anyways, my point is that we are now at the stage as parents where we have to seriously contemplate how we feel comfortable addressing Yona’s behaviour whenever she crosses the line to something we see as unacceptable (e.g., physical aggression). So this has been a new learning curve for us and we’ve been spending a lot of time talking about it.
We agree that we need to be consistent in our approach, and that our goal is to help Yona understand that certain behaviours are not ok, and to help her learn to consider other ways to express her emotions that are non-agressive, as well as to consider how her actions affect other people. We also want to choose our battles but need to agree what is worth battling over. We’ve disagreed a few times. A couple of times, we’ve had Yona sit down in a quiet spot where we can see her and she can see us and have asked her to stay for a couple of minutes there. After a little time has passed, we have a talk about why we asked her to sit down and what she thought about what she did- why did she do it, how does she think it made the other person feel? So far we’ve only had to do this a few times and it seems to be resonating. Fortunately, although Yona did go through a stage of multiple mini meltdowns each day, that doesn’t happen nearly as frequently lately, which has allowed us to have some good talks.
I’m definitely not a parenting expert or a behaviour expert, but I do believe that parents know their kids better than anyone else, and while speaking to other parents and reading parenting books can help (a lot), often one’s approach will need to be tweaked to suit the unique needs of one’s kid while respecting basic societal norms and playdate/playground etiquette. Plus, the decisions we make as parents around behavioural issues I’m sure are influenced by many things, including sibling relationships. I can also see that some *strong opinions* exist amongst other parents on this topic. After all, nobody wants to judge anyone else’s approach (or so they say) but they still will. When kids socialize, I’m sure these types of issues come up all the time- what one parents designates as acceptable, another may not. One parent’s approach to discipline or to praise, rewards, etc. might be very different from the approach of their kids’ playmate’s parent. So we’ll see how it goes. No doubt there will be new challenges and developments in this area with Yona and future kid(s) along the way.
So January is starting off well- a growing belly, a tired but happy Mama, a great dad, and a wonderful little Big Girl. Happy new year, everyone!
I’m glad you posted this after all! Of course we are travelling over a lot of the same ground with Gav in terms of discipline. (Exacerbated by his unique situation over the last months.) There’s a lot of that toddler meltdown stuff going on, and it can be hard to deal with.
I have been thinking a lot about Alfie Kohn’s book lately and still think that a lot of his ideas have value. I do think we live in a society that praises our little ones for every little thing they do, and it isn’t always that helpful to them. I also do wonder about the system of rewards and punishment… but it’s so easy to fall into that trap. “If you eat a bite of this, then we can watch this DVD”
I like your idea of sitting on a quiet spot – I think it is a kind of thoughtful time-out. I really dislike the idea of hauling your child off to scream in a corner for a time-out, it seems so counterproductive. However, it can be so hard to keep your cool with a wailing child on your hands, and obviously different techniques work for different kids.
Good luck with all of it – you and Mike are such thoughtful and loving parents that Yona and Baby 2 will no doubt grow up to be truly exceptional people.