Listening To: Bomba – Azul Azul (love me some latin music!)
Mood: On.
As I mentioned in my last post, we had a situation recently
that required some stiff consequences. I caught my daughter stealing money out
of my wallet. She also lied straight to my face about it as the money was
falling out of her pocket.
Of course this incident happened as we were walking out the
door to go to my sister in law’s house, so we had to put off deciding what to
do until we came back. I wish that I would have spanked her right then as I
feel consequences should be associated with what happened, but I think we
handled it alright anyhow. After some skype style discussion with Daddy G (who
is in the US for a month for work) about what to do, I had
to sit my daughter
down and let her know what was going to happen for her.
Daddy G strongly urged me to spank her really good.
Logically, I strongly agreed with him, but in the end, just couldn’t do it. My
father used to beat us with a wooden spoon when we didn’t act right. I always
hated it and I was afraid of him. I always vowed that I would never teach my
kids that violence was an acceptable solution to someone that you couldn’t make
do what you expected. It was pretty
ineffective too. It made me into an incredible sneak and liar just so I wouldn’t
get caught. I have tried my best to follow this philosophy. There have
definitely been times when my kids have been spanked, but never to this
extreme. Since the moment when I
discovered the theft was gone, I decided to find a different strategy.
After talking to a good friend who has daughters that are
close in age to mine, I decided to try putting my daughter in a complete
lockdown. I sat her down and explained how the week would look for her. She
would get up as normal, get dressed, eat, and go to school. When she got home,
she was going to do her homework in her room, as usual, and then she would be
expected to stay in her room and keep quietly occupied. She would be allowed to
eat dinner at the table with us, but then would be required to go back to her
room until it was time to go to bed. There would be absolutely no tv, no video
games, and she didn't have the freedom to be out around the house. Should another incident of this type, stealing
what didn't belong to her from me or anyone else, there would be a very serious
spanking. My daughter has heard about my childhood, and is duly afraid of a
wooden spoon spanking.
I’m proud to say that we stuck with it for the entire week,
even though there was much, much whining about boredom. I got the opportunity
to remind her that the consequences were a result of her own actions when this occurred.
She got tired of hearing it over and over and eventually stopped complaining.
I really hope this is the end of such behavior. I don’t want to have to spank her, but I know
that I will have to if this happens again. There are certain behaviors that
parents just cannot slide at all – this is one.
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