Judging by my children’s astonished and outraged expressions when we read about Danny’s experience with a school cane and Captain Lancaster, they clearly don’t consider themselves to be beaten children, despite the fact that they do occasionally get the odd smack. This is a relief, as i’m getting a little tired of feeling like i’m lumped in with “child beaters” just because i am honest about the fact that occasionally my parenting strategies fail me completely. That said, i’m deeply resenting Amelie’s stance of “i can make you go completely mad by just giving you this look…” at the moment as i really do hate resorting to smacking. We’d really not used it as any sort of fianl stance for years as it most certainly didn’t work for Maddy and i feel slightly frustrated by a child who brings out the worst in me this way. I so want to be able to find another way of dealing with deliberate, wilful ignoring/bullying/hurting/manipulating/plain honest to goodness disobedience for the sake of it but she is utterly defeating me. If i ask her to do anything, she automatically does the opposite, such as when we were in a hurry the other day, i asked her to put socks on and came back to find her completely naked again and smirking. Her smirk really drives me wild. And i know so many people who handle this kind of stuff calmly and rationally and i find myself persistently disappointed in my lack of ability to handle it.
Oh well, this too will pass. In 18 months she’ll be 5, all being well, and a more different person than i can begin to imagine right now.
Fran and i mosied around town today and very much enjoyed our girly time together. We spent ages in Lakeland, where we fell in love with the colourful kitchen range and a set of plastic plates and stuff which will look lovely on my new table in my new dining room but which isn’t on their site. Bah 😀 Oh no, here it is.
And then we went and oggled crafty stuff in Colemans too, before pitching home with a heap of new Fairy Books 🙄 She’s read 2 already!
The others had a good time at Silverstone, though i think it was a bit cold. Amelie said the highlight for her was getting a drink; Maddy got waved at by a car driver and was highly delighted by that. Honestly, that girl in her tightly fitting jeans. Where the hell did she get a waist and a bum from???? I’m SO not ready for a saucy wench of a 6 year old! 😯
We’ve enjoyed tea together tonight, managed not to have to get frustrated with Fran’s manners, praised Amelie for some excellent knife and fork use (the only one who seems to be able to do it!) and laughed at Josie who now has the words Dora, backpack and map down pat and appears to have some sort of sniffer dog ability when it comes to Dora merchandise around the house. 😆
And now i am doing more ebay listing as we’ve discovered this morning that our rent actually runs out earlier than we thought and the completion date we’ve been pushing for is nowhere near as convenient and we might be moving rather sooner than we planned. Eeeep. SO i REALLY have to get rid of this heap of stuff that is very enticing but we don’t exactly need two versions of!
sympathy on ‘the smirk’, I have a specialist in those living with me (and no prizes for guessing which offspring does it!).
S was certainly no older than Josie when her Dora obsession took hold and that was without an influential older sister – call it bi-lingual early learning and celebrate! 🙂
Thanks for your email btw, will reply 🙂
I was just musing this evening that one day M will be big and sensible, and not wind C up just for the reaction, not kick her shoes off in the car however short the journey, she will lose that really annoying whine, and that smirk, yes, she has that one too. Then Jonathan helpfully pointed out that she might just get big…
Oh no, please… don’t say that!
Like the tableware, it is really pretty. how much sooner might you be moving?
We have a ‘smirker’ too- we have had two.My cruel way of dealing with it was to take the offending child out naked(bringing clothes) and the said child was so cold and humiliatedthey never did it again- its a harsh line to take and not one i repeat lightly. They new I wasnt going to be entangled in their little game. Its not easy either way when they try your patience. Try not to be too hard on yourself regarding smacking, you are human and stuff happens. Weuse smacking rarely too, but we are no child beaters.
Well several days at least; in fact, we only just got our notice in in time. That would have been a serious pain if we’d missed that.
Z is a smirker too, she can cause chaos with one glance! I take things away from her and ignore the whines.
I too have a smirking, refusing-to-get-dressed, stroppy child but she *is* better than she was 18 months ago which is hopeful! For some reason though i have instilled enough terror in her that a sharp word has her disolve into tears (and incapable of doing whatever she was refusing to do for several hours!) i do have the advantage though of if she won’t get dressed adn it’s something non-essential I just don’t go and she misses out.