Karma Gives it Back.

Dilemma of the week:
How do you get a 3 and a half year old to stop whining?!? It's such an obnoxious sound. Holly seems to have a real talent for testing mom and dad's patience...

AlphaJ and I are about at our wits end with the vocal pitch ranges of children. We love both Kaia and Holly, very much. But sometimes, that shrill, squealing giggle or the whining tirades, with full-fledged foot stomping on the way to time-out, can rattle your insides like nails on a chalkboard.

We've sent her to the corner, but the corner is Right next to our bedroom/office door, so then she just carries on, with that awesome pouty face that children are soo good at.

[yep... that's the one!]









So now, we send her to her room. However, in there, she carries on and on; flapping her arms around like a crazy chicken, yelling and screaming that it's not fair and that we don't like her...
She still has 9 and a half years until she's "technically" a teenager and we Already have to manage this type of defiant behavior... AlphaJ and I are doomed! Mom always joked with me that however bad you were, karma gives it back to you 3-fold. I must have been ROTTEN. I have Two Girls... does that mean that my karma owes me 6 times the trouble?!?

Help Me!

'Cause Kaia's been a sassy-pants lately; talking back and correcting AlphaJ and I like she's the Queen of the World. Serve Me, think for me, and praise everything that I do (three times for the same thing). Then, she'll make up stories, all involving a Prince and Princess falling in love. I call this attitude: The Disney Princess effect. AlphaJ and I have been working on that issue, as well, helping Kaia understand that real princes and princesses help their people and do good services for their community and land.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in giving children praise for doing good things, working well on a project, cleaning up, etc., but there's a limit. If you Over-praise, then children will learn to expect recognition for every minute detail of their life, their Entire life... and that's not reasonable to expect.
As adults, there are many things that we do, very well, on a day-to-day basis that we may never receive praise for doing. But we do these things because we either have to do them to do our job, or we really enjoy doing them. Somewhere in life, that lesson is taught and learned, so why not from mom and dad.

Between Whining and Princess Attitudes, we need some change in our atmosphere.

 - Omegan :-D