No love, no logic...

Who has my Love and Logic book, anyway?

So Alice is officially immune to my most relied upon parenting method, Love and Logic. I'm not any stellar example of the technique, but Chris and I wanted to be on the same page when parenting, and I knew he wouldn't really take to reading a whole book on the subject, so at Sommer's suggestion, we attended a class on L&L at a local hospital. Most everything I learned, I appreciated, with few exceptions. A lot of L&L will come most in handy with older children who know how to use logic and reason...I look forward to using it then, but there are some things I picked up that I try to use regularly...

1. Wrong doing by a child should affect them, not you or other innocent, well behaving children. For example, when Alice is throwing a master fit (three times a day), she can definitely choose to spend her time that way, but she can't do so at the expense of the rest of the family, so she needs to remove herself (yeah right) or be removed until she chooses to calm down. This is a good idea. I'm all for letting them choose their emotions and doing so where at least they think I can't hear, but Alice can not be contained. We have had to move time out from the couch in the living room to her room, then to the car seat (strapped, and can't get out) but starting today, because she is too big and strong for me to force her into the seat without coming away in tears, we moved timeout to the backyard. You'd think that at three years of age, and after three years of the same follow-through, she'd get it: quiet down, be nice, and you can come out of timeout. Not Alice. She carries on for at least thirty minutes...even outside! Just when I start to doubt that she's old enough to understand the concept, I read on my friend Lyndsey's blog that her two year old is getting it down, and I realize that Alice is definitely old enough to get it.

2. By offering choices, you can control the options without making them feel powerless. This is how that goes at our house.
Me: Do you want cereal or yogurt for breakfast?
Alice (in the grumpiest, mumbliest voice EVER): Pancakes.
Me: I'm not making pancakes today (sometimes it's a milk and cereal day, right?), would you like yogurt or cereal?
Alice: PANCAKES! (Sounds like a bark but you know the meaning of the sound.)
Me: Uh oh, I hope you can make a choice to talk nicely to mommy so you can have breakfast with Ruby right now.
Alice: @#$^NEKI#$$%#$@#(%J$()L#)#UU$%#$@#@#%$#^%&^%&^*^&%#$@#$!@bark pancakes bark*&.
Me: Alice, please go up to your room until you can quiet down.
Alice: inaudible decrease in decibels, only noticeable by body language.
Me: Alice, do you want to go to your room by yourself or have mommy take you outside for timeout?
Alice: #$#%$%^%^%^%#$#$(*&^&)*(*^%#$%$&&*(*
(This leads me to L&L #3)

3. When a child fails to choose for themselves, you quickly make the choice for them. So, to continue the above scenario...off to the backyard she goes. She can see us, we sit there and eat our breakfast almost in peace, and even though I know she knows the drill, I remind her once or twice over her tirade that she just needs to calm down if she wants to come inside.

4. There is no counting. Counting only tells a child that you will allow the misbehavior to continue for however long you are willing to count. I have NEVER counted, and I'm really glad. Not that I don't employ other stalling tactics! In L&L they tell you that if you have explained to your child your expectation, and they know the consequence, you don't give warnings, because we aren't usually consistent with out warnings, and it can be confusing for a child if you give ten warnings one day and no warnings the next day. It is better for them to know what to expect, so they can behave accordingly.

5. Losing your cool will only make their crying about your temper and not what they did wrong. If a child pushes you to the point of yelling, stomping, spanking or otherwise, you will probably see that they are crying as a result of your tirade, and they have now forgotten to be sad about what they did wrong, and the opportunity for them to learn is gone. This is hard with Alice, but only because I wasn't following through as quickly, so by the time I went to timeout, I was super frustrated. I would even stoop to yelling the choices at her one last time so that she could make a choice that didn't require a thirty minute timeout while physically restrained. One day, after this all happened, I was so mad because I hadn't come up with the car seat option, and she refused to stay in her room (at the time this was worse case location for her timeout). I didn't want to play the fool by standing there holding the door handle while she threw an entirely unnecessary tantrum on the other side. I called Chris at work. "Chris, I am going to spank our child, and I wanted you to know." He could hear the tirade on the other side, and though I don't think he wholeheartedly agreed with my decision, he could hear the threat in my voice and knew not to tell me no. So, I put her on her bed one last time, got down on her level and loudly said (so she could hear me, she was screaming), "Alice, if you open that door one more time, I am going to spank your bum." I closed the door, and it immediately opened as she tried to rush past me, heading for the stairs. So I swatted her bum. I didn't do it hard, it probably didn't hurt...the idea was to use something new to get my way (spanking is not part of L&L). She did cry louder, but didn't choose differently the next time I closed the door. That's when the carseat thing occurred to me. As a side note, don't forget that I have two unexperienced adult men in my house during most of the Alice drama, as she tends to pull this first thing in the morning and they (the missionaries that live here) are here until 10AM having their study time.

Sometimes, I just don't see an end in sight. Someone, I don't remember who, said something when Alice turned three about how that was their hardest year, and I agreed, but cringed because the "terrible twos" were already so hard, and I didn't want to see another year of my sweet, smart, child acting like a problem child. Today, Ruby drew a picture and wrote something at the bottom for me to read. Because she doesn't really follow the left to right rule, and all letters run together, there was no way I could figure out what she wrote. She told me, "Alice is the horrible-est." I'm sure this isn't the best response, but I said, "She's all you've got, go to your room."

Anyone? Help!