Discipline has always been something I was dreading to do with Chloe. I know I have a temper and I know that sometimes I need to just walk away and have James deal with Chloe's tantrums because I know my limits. I don't want to do something or say something out of anger. I had fear about disciplining Chloe. I was worried that I would do something out of control or that I would not do it right and instead of teaching her a valuable lesson, I would instill fear in her instead. God has helped me deal with this so much. He has granted me more patience than I thought possible. He has helped me give grace to her pretty much immediately after doing something to purposefully push my buttons.
You are probably thinking how could a child less than 1 1/2 purposefully push my buttons? Oh she can and does, more often then I would have hoped. When I say she can't have that or not to touch/do something that can hurt her, she looks me right in the eyes and does in anyway. When she gets mad she has pulled my hair. When I ask her to stop, she sits there holding on to my hair in her fist and looks me in the eyes then smiles and pulls my hair again. and hard too.
Now her big thing she gets a kick out of is hitting. We hadn't seen her do it before, but the school told us her and another girl hit each other a lot when they want to play with each others toys. We thought it was so strange since she hasn't witnessed anyone hitting anyone. Then the hitting has now progressed into our home. When she is cuddling next to me all cute all of a sudden she will turn to me and hit me. when I say, "ow, we don't hit" she then laughs and hits me again. then when I sternly tell her "please stop" she then gets mad at hits and kicks me. It doesn't happen all the time, but it has been happening about 3 times a week lately and I am afraid that it will progress to more often if I don't rectify the problem now.
I can deal with the tantrums, in fact since we have instilled a time out chair her tantrums pretty much stop in there tracks. When she starts throwing a tantrum, we tell her to sit in her time out chair until she is done crying then she can come play when she is ready. And she gets up from the floor and goes to sit in her chair until she is done and then comes back to play. And sometimes all we have to ask is if she wants to sit in the time out chair and she says no and immediately stops crying. However, It doesn't seem to work with hitting. When I tell her that she will have to go to the time out chair if she hits me again, she then yells and hits and kicks me more.
I don't know why the time out chair isn't working for this, but I would love to hear if any of you out there experience something like this and how you deal with it? I know every child is different and every family's personal discipline techniques are different, but I am at a loss of what to do.
