The nine month mark

[seph]

Toddlers and infants indeed love games. I read your post anarky, and I have some thoughts on this. Do you or Thomas' mother ever hit him (even gently on the hand, etc.) to discipline him? Part of the reason my nephew hits my son is because his mother hits him whenever he misbehaves, and he seems to think that this is a more effective way of getting desired results, whereas I teach Daniel that using words and speaking calmly is the only way you can do so. It's a little difficult to teach this to Daniel however, when his cousin constantly hits him. Also, my nephew is hit often by his mother simply because she is lazy and does not want to deal with him at all. This is also the reason for all of the screaming and namecalling and swearing she directs towards him. Once again, I must stress how important it is that you teach a child through example; if you scream, yell, and hit, your child will follow suit.

I am not by any means calling you two lazy, irresponsible, or in any way bad parents; in fact it sounds like you are quite the opposite. I'm simply suggesting that any methods you use to discipline, play, or teach your child may be backfiring, and this may cause undesired results. Maybe you both should take a step back and observe exactly what you are doing with your child, and you might find clear as daylight the reason your child hits (even if simply playing). For example, my son began punching us in the face randomly, and Nikki hated it. I know exactly why this happened; I would entertain myself by wispering to Daniel "go punch Mommy in the face," and he would do so. Although I found it cute, I almost regret doing it (although it was solved easily by giving no [or sometimes negative] attention to it and positive attention to other things).

And on to my son's games: We play peekaboo and it's a little worn out; he has been playing this for almost a year and he only plays it now with a blanket. For instance, he will hide under the blanket, then pull it over his head quickly and say enthusiastically "Oh, there I am!" This game has since been superceded by hide-and-seek, which I taught him last week. He understands it perfectly, and a typical game would go as follows: Daniel would stand outside the door of our bedroom (or whatever room we would play in) and cover his eyes while counting "1, 2, 3678910!" [sic] and yell "Ready not, here we come!" (still needs work on the phrasing). Then he would open the door, look for me very slowly, and then when he finds me, go very close to my face, he will wait a few seconds while smiling before shouting "Oh, I FOUND YOU!" in my face. Then I yell "Yay! You found me!" and I will tickle him for a minute or so, before he says "play again?" And we repeat the process. I can only do this for 20 minutes before I get bored of it, or physically tired. Also, he is learning to sing and play pattycake, itsybitsyspider, and other various songs. He is only beginning to understand the concept of singing, and he can sometimes sing certain words (1 in 5) of the Jojo's Circus songs which we watch together, or he watches while I study. However mostly he will simply say "Daddy, I'm gonna [sometimes 'going to'] sing like this: awawawawwawawawawa!!!" and then laugh hysterically. So games and songs as you can see are healthy and fun to play with a child, even if it seems stupid or redudant. I was afraid for a while to teach him certain things because I thought it would make him ignorant, but I realize he must learn everything in stages, and I allow this to happen (for example, watching television sometimes is necessary IMHO).

More on child psychology in a few hours, I needs ta [sic] eat and study for my semester which begins Monday.

[anarky]

Physical discipline is not something I recommend at all. I believe in discipline in stages, and use a certain MAXIMUM level depending on their level of understanding. It is useless hitting a 1 year old becaue the poor kids can't associate that with what they just did, nor can they grasp the concept of "wrong" from "right" easily.

The word "NO!" sternly spoken, not yelled, then do something funny to take his attention away from any wrong-doings. This generally works, but sometimes curiosity wins. He wanted - insisted - on touching the side of a gas heater. Only warm to the touch, like 35deg C (bath temp., although I like my showers at 65-70deg C), he touched it, and pulled away quickly before I could stop him. All I could do was comfort him at the time. But he knows what "hot" is now, and why he can't touch it. When it's off, he plays with the grill on the front, but when it's on at any level, he won't go near it.

Discipline and education by example is not always a good idea, so it seems.

Getting back to the hitting, the TV is always on when we are up. Beckii, more or less, I'd rather sit here and tap away at my already worn out keyboard. But the violence on TV (amazingly enough, even at 7am on the cartoons) is phenomenal, and I think he may have picked it up from there.

Nevertheless, violence cannot be stamped out completely from one's behavioural characteristics, as it is a primal urge of self-defence.

One can only say NO so often, then it's picked up, and placed in the cot with nothing to do but cry for a minute or two. This generally works, but it's a last resort.

But hey - he is rarely like this. He would rather get the foot and leg of a vacuum cleaner - or a broom - and help clean up...

[seph]

Firstly, I think what you are doing is great. When you tell a child "No" but leave them to sit there and want to do it more, they will inevitably do it again. What one should do is what you do, where you distract them with a more fun toy or activity, until the child is old enough to have you explain to them why they may not do this. For example, Daniel knows not to touch the outlets because I have used the words "dangerous" and "hurt" extensively since he was very young. So he understands that it will hurt him if he does so. However, when he gets extremely excited (usually happy accompanies this) there is often no way of getting his attention and he will continue to misbehave simply because his attention is so focused. This is what I reserve time-outs for mostly.

I want to mention my opinion on time-outs at this time: time-outs are great. They encourage the child to calm down and when they are older, also to reflect on what they did wrong. When I am done giving Daniel a time-out, I say "Daniel, why are you in timeout?" and after he says "Because, I need to sit here like this in time out." (he does not completely understand my question yet) I w ill rephrase this and he will answer correctly most of the time, such as "because I touched the computer," while I reiterate that yes, he should not have touched the computer after I told him no. This stage of purpose comes later than the initial calming down timeouts. And both work well if you use them correctly. However I have seen my stepsister use timeouts completely incorrectly and she gets none of her desired results. For example, she will often sit him in timeout just because he is talking while she is watching Forensic Files and distracting her. Firstly, he is doing nothing wrong except talking when she wants silence (you should expect not to have silence while a child is awake). Secondly, she never explains to him in calm, normal voice what he did wrong, or why he should not do it. Almost always, she yells at him in an angry tone, even after he sits in timeout for a while. This will make him hurt and defensive, and not willing to listen to her. Also, my wife and I agree that compassion is the primary tool you should use to teach a child why not to do things that hurt or bother others. So I would have said "You are in timeout because you make a lot of noise when your mommy wanted to watch her show. That hurts her feelings and makes her sad." This lets the child know his actions hurt someone else. Enough ranting about her now.

Secondly, I would like to disagree with what you said about violence. My son never uses violence to defend himself. Instead, when his "assertive" (actually just an innocent reflection of his asshole mother) cousin tries to take something away from him, Daniel will hold the object behind him and say "No, that's mine", often resorting to yelling this because the cousin will not understand that he needs to stop (again, my stepsister's lazyass fault). But Daniel never hits or pushes his cousin, and only hits in the form of playing, which is rare lately in itself.

Also, letting a child help you with household chores makes them feel important, like they are helping you (even if they do more harm than good, like getting dishes dirtier after you cleaned them). This is good practicie and I applaude you for it. =D

[seph]

Due to the ammount of topics related to children that we could potentially cover here, I suggest that a new forum, whether here or at another phpBB, be created specifically so that Nek, anarky, myself, and anybody else who wants to contribute, can discuss children, parenting, and all other goodness without it being lumped into one thread as this is. I would definately visit this potential forum every day because I am very passionate about my son, and hearing about other people's children and their ways of raising them. Not to mention, you don't need to be a parent to contribute to these topics. They are fun for all to read, and discuss in. Plus it would give us all a place to put these children-related topics in, which seem to be increasing a good amount in the last year.

[TheAdventMaster]

@Seph: I think just our threads on this is enough, but who knows.

You know guys, I may not have a child on my own, but I do have my little sister. It's really hard teaching children how to do right/wrong with inconsistancies. Like my dad for instance, believes in physical reinforcement. When my little sister was so young I felt she couldn't understand such a concept, he had used it. I believe it may have something to do with how he was treated as a child (no, he's NEVER been abusive, ever. I just think he misunderstands the comprehension level of a very small child), and it moved on to how he raised his kids.

Now often times since she is older, and physical reinforcement was used (and sometimes games like saying "no" in funny situations), just telling her she's doing wrong isn't enough. There are often times where you'll tell her to stop doing something when she's going too far, and she'll take "please stop" and laugh and do it again just to test when I'll get mad enough to either yell it, or threaten slight physical reinforcement. Btw, if you guys have and ideas on how I can get around this completely, as in maybe redirect her punishments, please let me know.

Also, I used to enjoy fighting a lot. I really did I used to fight my little brother a while back, one because I was "training" him and two because he was a complete idiot at times and I was completely fed up with him (he's like 10 now . . . And there's an older sibling of theirs that is a truly bad example for everything, which turned him into a brat). I used to play with weapons sometimes and sometimes my little sister would peek in even though I took as many measures as possible for her not to. What I know she saw for a fact was me hitting and playing around with my little brother. She came up to me just today, even though she's 5 now and I had never even thought of this happening, she asked if I could hit him for her. I became very upset at this, but realized it's my fault.

I don't know what to do about certain problems now that she's so old already. She remembers things for a long time and will even ask, "Well don't you remember when you just let me eat my cereal by the television?". Of course I don't always remember, so I have to re-explain why she should eat at the table instead. This applies to my situations with her often, memory.

About TimeOuts:

I agree timeouts are great. Definitely better than physical punishments ^_^;; I did my best to move away from physical punishment as much as possible. My mother says she doesn't believe in it at all, but there was even a time where I caught my sister wake up at night and just bother my mother (who was asleep ) only to have my little sister be spanked. I was very angry.

Punishment should lead to a lesson being learned with as little anger output from the child as possible, and compassion towards the child should be made as much as possible. For example, after time out I'd definitely explain why she is in it, and then I have her repeat it for me. Positive reinforcement when she's being good is ::very:: helpful in assuring she'll rather do good than bad. They can forget the timeout, and just know it's something they hate. They however, can also learn that doing good should be something they love and enjoy due to the positive feedback given by the parent.


Of course, all of this isn't 100% easy for me. I myself was raised on having physical punishment, which was no problem for me really. My father's a moralistic guy, so just listening to him eventually made me grow out of the stage needing any physical punishment. She is also the first girl in the family. Very different. More so some of the things that the males would have just forgotten about and not cared for she may cry and complain about later ^_^;;

An example of this was when my sister tried to surprise my mother by hiding, but my mother found her by accident. This made my sister cry for a very long time (and my sister still is very sensitive about when my mother finds out about her tricks). The problem is my mother will play along in very upsetting ways. "Let's just pretend I didn't find you, okay?". That is verrrry bad in my opinion. My little sister will use pretend in ways she shouldn't just to try and undo reality. Not cool. My mom plays along with it even though I told her to stop. There was even a time where my sister was under a table for over a half hour making silly noises until the right moment to surprise my mom, which was messed up slightly because it didn't go 100% my sister's way.

That is another item I do not know how to undo, because I live with someone, the parent of all things, who will play along with it. ^_^;;

[seph]

Nek Firstly, I want to mention that my wife brought up a good point just now: you don't want your child to develop a taste for sugar and sweets at such a young age. This often leads directly to obesity. But I know you're probably not doing this out of laziness, just out of compassion (you prolly want her to enjoy herself). But in any case, this is unhealthy. My wife suggests you should not feed a child (and I agree) sweets or juice or anything with sugar at least until the child is trhee or four. I would have followed through with this, but poverty forces me to use WIC, which gives us juice mostly. Also, children at your daughter's age should not be given whole foods, as it is very dangerous to their health because they may not be able to chew it etc. She suggests starting a child on this at 1 year, and again I agree. This brings me also to breastfeeding. While a child can breastfeed until adulthood, this is not recommended. It is necessary, although sad, to cut off that source of food from the child early, so they do not develop detrimental problems. For example, think of a child who has breastfed well into learning to walk, talk, eat with utensils, drink from a normal cup, etc. They have no reason to continue this.

Sorry to distract from my feeding-habit tidbit, but I just remembered something I have seen all too often in the last few weeks. In stores, outdoors, anywhere I see this: a child who is Daniel's age, either being carried by a parent or pushed in a stroller. It is horrible to do this because the child will never be pushed to learn to develop those skills themselves. I almost never hold Daniel anymore (mostly he refuses it ) and when we go anywhere, he walks almost always (excluding shopping trips, etc. where I need to hold something else primarily and cannot watch him properly while he walks).

Okay done with that rant. Now TheAdventMaster I have some suggestions. Firstly, I have experienced what you are describing firsthand; that is to say, my brothers and sisters (both older and younger) have done this to me, and it bothered me to no end during my childhood. Now I should mention that you should not categorize me as an eldest, youngest, or middle child, because I was all three due to belonging to multiple regular families and households. Also, I see my stepsister doing what your father does with her son. The problem is that you are not the parent, so you have no right to discipline your sibbling. The solution is communication. Of course, everybody has different levels of communication with each sibbling, parent, etc. I personally have made an extremely difficult and tedious (but off-paying) effort to talk to everyone I know in such a direct and pure way, that what I say can almost never be mistaken for something else (sarcasm, mean-spiritedness, etc.) because people simply know how I talk now. This means I can go up to my sister, and if she is mature enough to do so, discuss with her that "when I say I am serious, I do want you to stop because it really [ hurts | bothers ] me". Do this when she is calm, and not shortly after she has done this. That way she will know you are serious. This is what I suggest, if you have decent communication routes with her. Otherwise, you might need to build them up over time.

[sidenote] I am a dedicated and tireless advocate of NEVER being sarcastic, exagerating, using colloquialisms or doing anything that can distort your actual meaning. I do believe it is good practice no matter who you are.[/sidenote]

anarky My wife also wants to mention to you that your son's habit of banging his head against a wall is extremely common in a child. She claims it is their way of dealing with anxiety, even when they are doing it playfully. Sometimes they can even acquire bruises from this. However, she says, this will go away in time. The best thing to do is not give any attention to this particular activity, and then shortly after, give positive attention when he does another activity. This I recommend because it will encourage him to do something else, and discourage him from doing something he gets no attention for.

[TheAdventMaster]

@Seph:

Well my parents are seperated. I don't go over my dad's house, due to a few reasons I won't mention ( they have nothing to do with him ). I watch my sister a lot My mom used to work very much until recently so I had to watch her all day quite often. Me not disciplining her in any form is a bit tough, as my mom won't/can't do it a lot of the time. I'd let her go to the daycare, but I do my best to avoid that as much as possible, because the kids there are very misbehaved and the adults watching are irresponsible. I understand where you're coming from though ^_^;;, completely. Makes sense to me. I don't have the right to discipline her. . . Hm.

Oh! Anyone have any fun games to play with younger siblings/kids? I'm having a blast with this one. I call it the Direction Train. My sister rides on my shoulders while I make chugga chugga noises. The **tells** me which direction to go, instead of pointing/giving vague directions as usual. This will really help her remember her directions, as I never really got to teaching her that much, unfortunately.

Directions atm are forwards, backwards, right, and left. ^_^;; Every now and then I go a lot faster so she has to think really fast on which direction to move before we bump into a wall

[seph]

I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic or not, when you tell me that you agree about not being responsible for disciplining her. Either way, you are not. It is your mother's job to do so. And if she cannot because of work, then she should spend less time working and more time at home. And if this is something she cannot do for economic reasons, she should make more of an effort to be more attentive when she is home. Obviously, there are some situations in which there is nothing she can do about being home less often than she would like. But it should never be your job to lay your sister's basic disciplinary foundations. Your parents should have done this years ago, yet you feel responsible to do this now. Yes, when you watch her while her mom is away, you can discipline her because you are in charge. However that should be less often than your mother is in charge.

[Radical Raccoon]

Why are you all posting chapters? Good grief!

I think I'll just read a newspaper.

[seph]

I'm elaborating on my thoughts on what everyone else is saying. It only looks like a lot because it is. But really, it's not a lot... :???: