Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Carter has gotten so sweet with his buddy Jake. When Jake doesn't come on a day he normally would Carter walks around the house saying, "Jakers?", hoping Jake will show up at any minute. When he's playing with cars he sweetly walks one over to Jake. It melts me. He'll carry Jake's sippy cup over to him saying, "Here ya go, Jakers." He waves to Jake when they are on opposite sides of the play house. He points next to him and asks for Jake to sit there. He tells Jake night night when he goes down for a nap and takes off running toward his room at the first sound of him waking. I love their relationship.

Beating the windows together.

Of course, Carter still has his moments where he takes a toy from Jake, but he's in that stage of development. It is to be expected. What drives me nuts is his mooching ways. He always finishes eating before Jake and then starts stealing food off Jake's tray. I put him in time out only to have him immediately back at Jake's tray sneaking food. I would knock it out of his hand telling him no so he wasn't rewarded with food for bad behavior. He wasn't swayed. I explained if he eats Jake's food, Jake won't have enough to eat and will be hungry. Blank stare. I'd get him distracted with something else only to have him lose interest after a while and go back to food stealing. Finally I told him , "If you take food off Jake's tray again I'm going to slap your hand." He reached his precious, little hand over and grabbed a piece of food. I slapped his hand, he dropped the food, looked at me in shock, and tears beaded up in his eyes. His smile turned into a frown and he started crying, reaching for me. It was terrible. I hugged Carter and told him I was sorry he took the food and not to do it again.

I will steal your food!

Once Carter was consoled I walked into the kitchen and began crying. It's one thing to disappoint Carter by not giving him something he wants and causing him to cry. It's a totally different thing to cause him physical pain. I stood there thinking a mile a minute with tears streaming down my face. I'm trying to teach Carter not to hit. I want him to learn that you solve problems through communicating, not by using force. And here I am doing just the opposite. He learns by example and I'm teaching him to solve his problems by hitting. 

Carter noticed me crying and rushed over saying, "Mommy okay?" I looked at my sweet child who learned to check on the well being of others through my modeling. I knelt down on the floor and told him I was okay, I just needed a hug. He quickly rushed over with his arms outstretched for a hug. When he let go he looked at me, said "Okay?", and shrugged his shoulders. I assured him I was okay as he rushed back to Jake's tray to snatch food. I followed him over, told him no and pried the food out of his hand. I decided it may take longer for him to learn this way, but it will be better for both of us. I can be a hard ass with discipline, just ask my old co-teacher. My method doesn't involve severe or physical (obviously in a school setting) punishments. I hold children accountable for their behavior and have high expectations. The consequence for the behavior is logical and related if at all possible. My favorite punishment is making children feel very guilty by discussing what they chose to do and explaining how disappointed I am with lots of "looks" and sad voices thrown in.  Carter isn't to the age where he can comprehend that quite yet, so I tried something else out. And I'm ashamed to even admit that I wouldn't have done it if I weren't pregnant.  I was overly frustrated due to my lack of patience that comes right before naptime when I'm physically exhausted.  I learned I'm not going to be the type of parent who can spank (although I have no problems with spanking, do what works!). Unfortunately that's a lesson I had to learn from experience. My first year of teaching I discovered children forgive me much quicker than I forgive myself. Obviously that was the case with Carter. He was already over it and in my arms moments later and here I am writing this weeks later still beating myself up over slapping his hand. You live and you learn.  Sometimes you just choose to do it the hard way!

Update:

I wrote this post about 2 months ago and have had so many posts I felt were more important to get up since then that it's been sitting in my drafts waiting and waiting to be published.  I figured I would add an update on the food stealing situation as it has improved dramatically.  After the awful hand slapping incident I went back to telling Carter "no" very sternly and knocking the food out of his hand so he wasn't reinforced for bad behavior by getting to eat the food.  After just a few days Carter figured it out.  Now if he takes food off Jake's tray and I tell him "no", he drops the food back onto his tray and walks away!  I'm so glad my less stern method of discipline was successful and I'm also glad that Carter is such a fast learner!