Discipline

I am not good at disciplining Kaia. When the time is right for me to do so, I am generally too frustrated myself from his kicks and wails to offer any kind of level-headed, consistent disciplinary tactics. While his temper-tantrums have become more frequent and pronounced in recent days (largely due to him not feeling 100% health-wise), I have been feeling a bit more pressure to get him to understand that certain behavior is not so great. Of course, he’s not old enough to fully rationalize with, so this makes it very difficult and only adds to the frustration of being the person who is trying to calm down the raging 3 footer. There are times when he does little things that he shouldn’t do—like drawing on the wall—or dangerous things—like rooting around the electrical sockets where discipline isn’t so difficult for me, but its those times when the emotions are raging that keeping your head—so that your child doesn’t lose his—that I really struggle.

This morning was one of those times, when he wanted to rifle through the pantry (he was hungry and breakfast was late) and make a mess. This has been a constant problem for us, with his opening the refrigerator (sometimes we forget to lock it) and also pulling things out of the lower cabinets. Up until recently we’d been storing juice boxes down there, and it was a constant battle (even which ‘child proof’ locks, yeah right) with him opening boxes and drinking out of them (these are the large juice boxes, not the individual ones). Currently, there are 5 of such boxes in our refrigerator due to this habit. There should only be one. Anyway, he got really upset because there was nothing for him to eat (i.e. cookies that I had already stashed away) and began to arch his back and say ‘noooooooonoooooooo!!!’. I really hate these moments. First off, it is hard to keep holding him when he’s like this, and two, usually he slaps, hits or kicks you in the process. Often times, this means a launching off of the glasses. No fun. In these times, you can only just put him gently on the ground and hope that he doesn’t hurt himself. I waited a bit too long to do this and got caught by a left hook to the cheek, at which I raised my voice and said “KAIA—NO! Do NOT do that.” This, of course, didn’t help anything and just got him more upset. Kaia is a very sensitive child and takes it very hard when you raise you voice at him. Almost immediately, I knew that I had made things worse.

So eventually things calm down, he gets to eat and gets back to being himself. Me, on the other hand, I’m still feeling upset about how I handled the situation. As his parent, I should be in much more control over my emotions, regardless if he is flailing and whacks me. He’s only 2 years old and doesn’t know better. Teaching him to respond with raised voice and frustration is not acceptable and even worse than what he was doing in the first place. Hopefully next time, I’ll do a better job with my parenting….

Why I Love this Time: He’s now learned the right time to say “good morning, papa” and give a big hug.