5 Things I Learned While Attempting to Discipline My Children

5 Things I Learned While Attempting to Discipline My Children

1.  Children never listen, ever! Not only do they not listen they also insist on blaming us (the parents) for them not listening.  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve repeated, “Pick up your backpack.” or “Clean your room!”, or “I told you NOT to do that.” I would be a very rich woman.  A few days ago my middle daughter Savanna (whose nickname should be Diva) and I had a very heated conversation about cleaning her room…here’s how it went down.

Me:  Did you clean your room?

Savanna:  (looking somewhat confused) Huh?  When did you tell me to do that?

Me:  Oh I don’t know about 50 times in the last hour.

Savanna:  I didn’t hear you!

Me:  Don’t you mean you weren’t listening?

Savanna:  Um no…it’s not my fault you were whispering it.

Me:  Really?  Well how bout this…GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM!  We good now?

Savanna:  (flipping her hair and stomping off) Mom you didn’t have to yell at me!

I cannot win with these kids!

2. Time Outs are for Suckers.  Now while I realize this one may catch me a fair amount of heat from parents who believe that non-aggressive discipline is the way to go…I DON’T CARE…time outs do not work!  Never, ever have a seen a child who was sent to time out have a major epiphany afterwards…nope quiet the opposite actually.  In my experience sending my kids to time out I’ve experienced temper tantrums, screaming, kicking, repeated bad behavior, and the list goes on and on.  In conclusion Time Outs = Parents with a penchant for punishing themselves!

3. Spanking’s Aren’t Cutting It.  Now I know you’re shocked that since I don’t believe in time outs I also disagree with spankings, well don’t be.  You see it’s not that I disagree with spankings, it’s that they don’t work.  In the 11 years I’ve been a mother I’ve handed out many spankings,and did they work—nope they only made more unnecessary crying, and threats of “This is child abuse.”, and a sore hand.  So in my opinion spankings are as useless are timeouts—at least where my kids are concerned.

4.  Backtalk is a way of life with tweens!  I remember being a little kid and attempting to mouth off to my mom and then it kind of goes fuzzy, want to know why?  Well because if and when I decided that I was big enough to be mouthy with my mom I usually ended up backhanded in the mouth.  And you know what I think it worked…I can only remember a handful of times I back talked my mom so either it worked or I’ve blocked them out because they were too painful to remember..lol!

5.  Threatening and not following through makes you a wuss—and your kids know it!  I am so guilty of threatening “I’m gonna bust your butt.”or “You just wait till I find my belt.” and not following through.  I’ve done this for so long that when I say those things to my kids they just stand there and stare at me like “Pish she’s not gonna do it.” and 99.9% of the time they are right.  My threats have become almost as big  a joke as time out around here. 

Notice how I said attempt in the heading,well it’s because I’m still (11 years later) trying to figure out what works best for my kids.  I do however have a few tricks that have worked pretty well in the past and I can’t wait to share those with you…maybe I should make all readers sign a waiver before they read the post…hey not all of them would be considered cruel and unusual punishment…I think.

Until next time…tell me something you’ve learned while trying to discipline your kids!