It feels like every new stage of childhood I meet with my kids is the toughest. I remember those long nights of up every hour with a newborn, teething with a grumpy toddler, potty training, the ‘terrible twos’ everyone told me about, and the ‘terrible threes’ that no one told me about. Now that I have a four year old, I’m learning all about new challenges and getting a taste of what to expect in the coming months and years.
Our biggest challenge these days is getting the Mouse to slow down for two seconds and listen, and then retain those instructions and follow them. It drives me bonkers on a daily basis how many times I have to say, ‘Mouse, PLEASE be quiet’. And after the first three times of saying it {in a 15 minute period} by number four, it comes out more like, ‘OMG Mouse! I told you to HUSH! STOP YELLING!’.
Yeah. Totally effective. I have no idea where he gets his loud mouth from.
Long gone are the days when I could make a decision, request that my child do {or not do} something, and know that he will follow said request. Now that he can vocalize 99.8% of his wants/feelings … I usually get an ear full once my directions are given. Why? I don’t want to be quiet. I was playing Iron Man. Why? Baby Froggy is yelling too. This barrage of questions back at me automatically raises my defenses. When I was a kid, there was no arguing. Arguing automatically = big trouble. I’ve talked before about how I feel that I get my personality from my mom, but my parenting style from my dad. My dad was strict. He was old school. He didn’t take crap like this from his kids.
So now I struggle. I struggle a lot. Every time I have a moment like this with the Mouse where I feel like it’s a battle just to get through a bath without wanting to pull him out of the tub and send him to bed because he’s spent the last two hours testing every. single. boundary. – I remember that he’s only four. Regardless of much bigger than the Froggy he is, regardless of the fact that he’s about to start ‘real’ school, with a ‘real’ locker … he’s still just hardly more than a toddler. In the grand scheme of things, four years old is still a baby.
Patience, mommy. Patience.
I’m rethinking my strategy. Maybe scolding, timeouts, and taking beloved things away from him for a specific amount of time is not the best way to handle the Mouse. Or maybe they will be, but I need to couple them with more positive reinforcements as well. Maybe a points reward system for him – his favorite rewards these days are trips to the frozen yogurt shop, and time on Mommy’s iPad. Maybe a behavior chart – so we can work on a specific thing he needs help with and he can see exactly how many times he’s had issues with it lately. All I know is that as he grows, so does my philosophy on how best to parent him and help him grow.
This whole ‘raising a human’ thing is hard. Really hard. But I refuse to let it get the better of me.
This is a sponsored post from Kid Pointz.com, which also enters me into their Search For the Next Kid Pointz Blogger contest. That being said, all of this whining and my opinions on how to parent my kiddos are my own. If you guys have suggestions on how you handle tough situations with your kids, and how positive parenting has helped, I would love to hear about them as well!
I’m with you on the Terrible Twos and Threes. And OMG what is it with the fours? He will. not. listen.
Ohai, I just downloaded a new app.
Glad that I’m not the only one that ends up yelling when I tell my child for the millionth time to stop yelling. I too try ti take a step back and realize that he is only ( almost ) 4. I know that his mind is going a a million miles a minute and that he gets excited about things and that there are so many new things that he is learning. I want him to have fun and be a child, but he also has to start learning to control his temper and listen to adults better especially since he will be starting kindergarten next year. I don’t want the teacher to constantly be sending a report home with him every day because of listening issues. I got Aiden a small chore chart. Its basic things like eat breakfast, comb his hair, get dressed, pick up his toys. And at the end of the week we’ll reward him with something, but not sure yet. You’re reward chart may be a good thing for him.