Loving/Discipline

I don't like disciplining my children.  I rarely need to.  Because our house is run on the principles of mutual respect, discipline occurs throughout the day, but disciplinING rarely does.  When the occasion arises, I choose to tread carefully.  While I want my children to respect me, I never want them to fear me.

Every night while I put the baby to bed, the toddler watches a movie while sitting in my bed.  I can see her, but I'm not sure she knows this as the baby's room is dark while I feed her and rock her.  She is typically content to sit and revel in the peace and quiet of a baby free/mom free thirty minutes.  Tonight though, she got down from the bed, pulled down a few books, and was happily coloring in the pages with a pencil she had somehow managed to get off the desk.

I didn't get upset at this.  She is a toddler, this is what toddlers do.

I removed the pencil from her, and firmly but gently told her "We color on paper, not in books."

She lunged at the pencil, grabbed it away from me,ran to the bookshelf and began wildly scribbling on the spines of the books.

This I did get upset with, as this intentionally mischievous behavior is unlike her.  I picked her up, and said again "We color on paper, not in books."

She responded by hitting me, actually pretty painfully, on the face.

I had to take a deep breath because I was in danger of acting in a fashion unbecoming to an adult.  I'm not too proud to admit that my first inclination was to yell at her, and lose my temper.  But what lesson does that teach her?  That mommy is not in control.

I lowered the tone of my voice and said very very firmly, and not so gently "We do NOT hit.  Hitting is mean.  You do NOT get to be mean to other people."

Then she began to cry.  I hugged her tight, lifted the tone of my voice back to gentle and said "I think you are very tired.  You are a very nice girl and you don't usually behave this way.  I hope that in the morning you will feel better and you won't want to be mean anymore."

She put her head on my shoulder, and we hugged an extra few minutes before I put her in her crib thirty minutes before her usual bedtime.

I hope she learned a few things from this.  The first lesson that I hope she learned is that I do know the difference between experimentation and intentional mischief.  She had no idea she wasn't allowed to color in the books.  She was trying something.  It was only problematic when she continued to do so after she was told not to.  The second lesson that I hope she learns is that mom means business.  I told her no, and then immediately reacted when she defied me.  Most importantly though, the lesson that I hope she truly takes to heart is that I remained in control the whole time, and continued to treat her with respect.  I did not act like a child and deal with the situation emotionally, because I am the adult in our relationship.  I hope this gives her comfort as she grows up.  I hope that she knows that she can always rely on me to be calm and in control.  Not in control of her, because I don't want to control her, but in control of myself, and, to the best of my ability, of the circumstances surrounding us.  The world is a crazy place, but HER world need not be if she knows she can trust me to be steady.