My Dad was a strict and controlling Dad to us. He shouted and he was aggressive. And we (my sister and I) got smacks when we were naughty (amongst other things). Let me just say, I was naughty all the time, so I have vivid memories of punishments.
Not surprisingly, I was always against smacking children (not least because of the emotional scars I still carry around from childhood), whilst my hubby was quite ok with this discipline method.
However, after watching Supernanny – which we did years before having kids – we agreed that it was possible to discipline kids without ever smacking them.
Fast forward a few years, and Miss Z is now in 1st grade. And it’s like an evil monster has come in the middle of the night and taken away our beautifully well behaved angel and replaced it with a little angry ball. She would have tantrums all the time. And not little tantrums, oh no! Massive, shouting, screaming and kicking tantrums… even saying things that we were in disbelief could come out of that little mouth.
And lo and behold, we forgot all about our self- imposed rules, and started using smacking as a way of punishment. To both Miss Z and Mr A. Every time it happened I felt rather guilty and sad. I remembered a phrase by Supernanny that says “if you use violence as a means of control on your kids, they will learn as adults to employ violence and fear to resolve conflicts”. I so didn’t want that…
We were in the process of changing nannies – my nanny of almost 5 years resigned to go and be a Mom herself, and I had just hired a new nanny.
My husband pulled me aside one day and said – “you do realise that this is all your doing? Your behaviour with Miss Z is to be aggressive when she does something wrong, or says the wrong thing”. He also said “notice that our nanny also is very strict with Miss Z, and that’s why she also responds aggressively towards her”. He continued “you have to agree that the dynamic with the new nanny is completely different. She is calmer, employs other, more positive, methods of getting the kids to cooperate, and so there are less tantrums”.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. I had become my Dad. Anything that Miss Z did that was not perfect according to my standards, I hammered on her like a ton of bricks (not literally of course!!). And I did so with an aggressive demeanour (loud, shouty voice, smacks, etc).
My hubby always told me to choose my battles with the kids. I think I forgot about that too. I wouldn’t leave any leeway for the kids to just be kids, to do some things wrong, to have their way on some things.
I felt like a failure. Big time. And then hubby and I had a talk. “Let’s agree that smacking is out. For good, not an option. We use the naughty step, we use reward charts, etc., but no more smacking”. And we also agreed that I had to do my best to be kind and calm.
Since I have changed my behaviour things have calmed down. Ok, it also helps that the new nanny brought a breath of fresh air to the household – I guess it happens every time when a new employee comes full of energy and enthusiasm to a job.
It reminded me once again of all the Supernanny episodes where invariably, it was the parents that needed to change, not the kids. I just never had the guts to admit I was the problem that was creating this little monster.
The kids are still playing up. But I have been able (for the most part) to discipline them with assertiveness but no aggression. The tantrums have substantially decreased. And most of the aggressive behaviour from Miss Z is gone. If we don’t agree on something we try to talk it through without screaming or shouting. Most of the time, she just takes my lead. If I am calm, she calms down really quickly and talks to me nicely. Whereas before I would shout at her and then tell her to be quiet when she shouted back.
It’s hard to admit that I was the problem. But at least I was able to take measures, and I’m much happier by it. One of the measures was the “Jelly Beans” reward charts, but that’s the topic of another post… 🙂