Mother of the year.

[rivka]

Never in her whole life have I ever been this close to spanking my kid.

We went to the playground for a picnic and running around with friends. While I was packing up afterward to go home, Alex started running down the long long path to where we parked.

"Alex, wait for me," I called. She laughed and kept running. She kept laughing and running when I stopped what I was doing, stood up, and bellowed "No, stop now" at the top of my lungs, in my this-is-a-major-issue voice. She kept running when I came after her, still shouting for her to stop. She finally stopped about 100 yards away from where we'd started.

Not. Okay.

All I could think of as I came after her was spanking her. Instead I told her how angry I was, grabbed her firmly by the arm, and marched her back to where our things were. I ordered her to sit on the ground and not move while I packed up the rest of our picnic things and I tried to calm down a little. Then I got down at her level and told her, firmly and angrily, that the biggest safety rule our family has is that she STOP and COME BACK when she is told. She knows this rule. Breaking the rule is dangerous. I told her that I was very, very angry.

I held her firmly by the hand all the way down the long path to the car. She's not used to that. She tried saying that she didn't want me to hold her hand, and I told her that she had to have her hand held because I couldn't trust her to listen to my directions. We usually go at a meandering, flower-picking pace. Not this time.

I told her that we aren't going to go anywhere else today, and she's not going to play outside at all. She asked me if I was going to water the plants without her, and I told her that I was.

I am still so, so angry. And a part of me is still thinking that she'd take the whole thing a lot more seriously if I had hit her.

Other non-spanking parents, I could use a pep talk right now.

Comments

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

You handled this PERFECTLY. Exactly as I handled the same sort of situation, and it worked for me. Wait until tonight when she is whining to go play outside and remind her that only children who listen when they're called get to go outside. When the ensuing whining and wailing happen, stand firm, and be as calm as you can. It really does work, or at least it did for me.

I've told this particular story before, but once, early in my and cute-poet-chick's relationship, we decided to take my kids (who were small, but not as small as Alex is) to the park with a friend of theirs. One of them did something in the van that we don't allow -- I don't know, hit someone or said something really mean -- and I asked cute-poet-chick to please excuse me while I turned around, dropped off the offending child with my mother, who had instructions to keep the kid inside, and went back to the park with the two kids who hadn't broken the rules. The wailing was impressive, but I'll tell you, it must have been a year before either kid acted up in public again.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

(And I will never forgive myself for the time I lost it and hit my kid. He doesn't even remember it -- he was too young -- but it will haunt me forever. I don't recommend it.)