Living in blogdom

Writing and reading blogs is fun, but it's also more than entertainment. Take yesterday. I read Erica’s entry on disciplining her daughter. This was on my mind as I went about my day and lo and behold, I encountered a discipline issue with my 4 year old (I know, what a surprise). Now, despite my appreciation for the principles of 1-2-3 magic, it is not a cure-all and I wasn't sure how to handle the fact that when asked to clean her room, she just looked at me very defiantly and said, "No! I won't do it!" (This is also an ongoing problem.)

Still thinking about Erica and Rebecca. I tell Taryn, "Come on, I want to talk to you in the living room." She kicks up a fuss and I end up dragging her to the living room and holding her (in a Crisis Intervention Institute approved basket-hold, I might add) for awhile, softly saying that she was upset and I was going to help her to calm down and feel okay again. When she was calm, Ashlin had come around too, so I hauled her on my lap too and told them we were going to pray together. So we did, with lots of toddler-prayer interruptions and prayer requests (Grandpa's knees, Grandma's tummy), but I also got in the bit about helping us all in this situation, for the kids to learn to obey and for me to learn how to help them.

After all this, I said, "Let's go clean your room." I got okays and co-operative girls, who received cute happy face stickers on their sticker charts, and all was right with the world once more.