Daddee Yah!

Uncle sneaked up on Caitlin and gave her a pat/stroke-on-the-head. Caitlin swings around and smacks him on the chest.

It is quite a common sight to see local toddlers raise their hand*, as if doing a scout’s honour / swearing-in-court, in a threatening I-will-smack-you gesture. But I never thought mine would start doing that.

I say this cos we don’t do it at home. Granted when I am cautioning Caitlin I do raise my index finger in a no-no wave, which she is now already imitating during play. But this smack-you thing, threat or otherwise actually executed, is something new to me.

And caution Caitlin I do, many times. Sometimes with raised & stern voice, other times I do actually smack her. We do this because, strangely right smack at age 3 (no pun intended), she actually started being very cheeky and at times defiant. Most cases have been telling her (no longer asking her) to greet/acknowledge elders whenever she sees them, in terms of showing respect for them. Other more serious cases have been when she does get physical like this- the raised-hand threat and the occasional follow-through with hitting of people.

We are quite concerned about this behaviour as we are now seriously searching for a pre-school for her to start attending fairly soon. We don’t want to get a phone call one day asking us to take our kid home because she’s been terrorising her schoolmates!

I have shared that I do smack Caitlin when she deserved it. Most times after Mummee or I have smacked her, she’d cry, we’d ask her if she understood what she did was wrong, she’d nod and say “Understand” (but then does it again in future, as this case in point), and we’d give her a don’t-do-it-again hug.

But not surprisingly we don’t wanna use smacking too often.

So last night we did a new discipline, after the incident with Uncle- We sent her to a corner.

She knew she was in the wrong, started crying herself, apologised, asked for a hug. We wouldn’t have it. “No, go stand in that corner” pointing straight-armed at the corner of the living room. After about 5 times each time with increasing urgency, she walked slowly there. “Think about what you did wrong and why you are being punished”.

For me especially, because we have lots of human touch (we hug, she sits on my lap, leans on me when I am on the sofa, etc), I think this isolation and deprivation might actually be effective- she was pleading to come back over, asking for a hug, didn’t like the isolation. Although it may be emotionally painful for her (& to watch), I think it should stick in her mind for a while…

.. Until it wears off and we have to look for another form of discipline!

If you did do the corner thing, how do you do it?
For how long? Stand all the way or allowed to sit (on the floor, for eg)? Within talking distance? Do you allow talking/talk to them? Impose conditions? Eg,Think about it like above, then tell me what you did wrong? Stop crying or you will have to stand there even longer?

* During a visit to the obst last year before Caleb was born, there was a set of brother-sister toddlers there too. Caitlin, perhaps being not socialised enough, didn’t have the necessary toddler-etiquette that was apparently the code among these little people. I didn’t see what she apparently did wrong in the eyes of these toddlers, I was about 15 feet away at the nurses counter trying to find out what was keeping them. The older brother exclaimed to his younger sister “HIT HER” immediately after which younger sister lunged towards Caitlin with her hand raised at my precious. I don’t know how I would have reacted if she did follow though and hit my little girl- lucky for her she didn’t. The parents of these little monsters were nearby, but I didn’t see any interventions whatsoever from them….