Adventures in Discipline

My poor neglected blog. Between a husband and toddler, a part-time job, a photography business, leadership stuff at church, and you know, a life, the blog frequently gets put on the back-burner.

I do, however, like to document the "goings on" of Campbell Rose (as I also am not so good at the baby book business!).

Lately we have gotten into some new territory with disciplining our darling, sixteen month-old girl. We first had a need for "discipline" at about nine months. Through reading, conversations with people whose counsel we trusted and who we felt had parented well, and lots of conversation between Russ and I, we forged ahead into the unknown and kind of treacherous territory that is discipline. (I mean really, this is kind of scary. I guess being a counselor I worry more than most about screwing my kid up.) While we have been advocates (for biblical and other reasons) of spanking, when used appropriately, lately we have found that it has just not been that effective.

For about 6 months, a simple spanking on the hand would dissuade Campbell from whatever she was doing. She never really cried though when she got spanked, just stopped the "no no" and went about her business. For the past month or so, however, she seems to have grown a little more obstinate. We have found ourselves telling her "no" several times instead of just once and having her not listen at all at times, which is very abnormal for her. And in the past few weeks we could tell she was "testing" us (doing something bad and smiling while doing it).

A spanking on the bottom did not get any better results. It just did not seem to faze her. We decided to try time-out.

I have generally not been a big fan of time-out. I think I have seen it used wrong more than used well. I refuse to be one of those parents who spends the majority of the time threatening their child in an attempt to get them to do well. It has been a delight to me that to this point in her life, people have remarked that Campbell is well-behaved.

But I think time-out can be used just as consistently as spanking, so we decided to try it. Oh has it worked. She has probably had five time-outs in the last week and a half and it has been DEVASTATING each time (not that I want to see my sweet girl sad - it kills me!), but she has become more obedient and is now listening to instruction more quickly once again.

And it has had its funny moments.

Yesterday she was tugging at the mini-blinds. Russ told her to stop or she was going to have to go to time-out. A few minutes later we went looking for her and she was sitting in the corner in the dining room where time-out always occurs, waiting for us to come get her.

This morning, she came to me crying. I asked her what was wrong and she led me to the same corner of the dining room, where her baby was sitting in time-out. Poor Carissa Jo. I wonder what she did wrong?

I love being this girl's mother.