Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Why?

Why is it that teaching our children a lesson seems to involve more pain and misery on the part of the PARENT than it does the child?
I.e.:
Teaching your child to eat at meal times..... Results in a child that screams for 3 solid hours because he hasn't eaten since supper the night before. Wouldn't it be easier to give in and give them a snack? But then they know they don't have to eat at meal times because they'll just get a snack later.
Ugh.
Another:
Bedtime battles.... It would be easier to just let them play or keep sneaking out of bed to find the cat. Then at least you wouldn't have to keep pausing your movie or actual adult converstations to go spank and put kids back in bed. Or turn it up loud enough to wake up the other one so you can hear it over the screams of the protestor. But how else do they learn that bedtime is non-negotiable?
Sigh.
I do love my life. But I do understand why some mothers are driven to drink.

2 comments:

Doug or Janice Rhodes said...

hang in there....consistency pays off...later. You want your children to be self-controlled later...you are the controller now. Alas there are no short cuts. If you get discouraged come view a certain boy in my neighborhood who has 0 consistency in his life. PS you do not know this one

~ April Darling said...

I just love you! Too true! Though I've never been able to do the meal thing... let me know if it produces the desired results. I am much too much of a softy and am realizing more and more how I need to be more firm. Very hard to go from soft to hard.