Monday, January 3, 2011

Ta-Da!

In my quest to teach myself to crochet "fo-real", I found this easy beanie pattern and had to whip up a little something for Ms. Nightingale.  I will attach the pattern I used (I had to make my hat bigger...because if you know Ingrid-then you know she has a large noggin). 

Here it is!


Talk about "picture perfect"!


Thoughts on discipline.....

Ingrid is definitley to the age where the tantrums and wineing have started.  I know some parents who just let there kids wine and throw fits, and think that the best way to curb this behavior is to "ignore it".  That's never made a ton of sense to me.  Isn't ignoring the behavior only enforcing the fact that they can get away with it?  I know the reasoning behind the "ignore" method is that you are not giving them the attention that they are trying to get through the tantrum....but as parents I feel like our job is to prepare our children to be well rounded adults who can function at their jobs and personal life.  How often can an adult throw a huge tantrum at work and have it just be "ignored"?  Of course Ingrid is only 1 1/2, so immediatley addressing her behavior in the middle of a fit is hard to do, since she is still working on reasoning skills.  What we do is remove her from the situation, and very firmly address the fact that the wineing or "fit" is not behavior that we will accept.  And even at 1 1/2 years old, she gets it.  

So if ignoring ill behavior is not the method for us, we can move on to discussing age appropriet "spanking" and hand slaps.  We never wanted to spank our kids, but we do.  To be honest, the jury is still out on whether or not I think this is okay.  Here is an example of the inconsistencies of spanking:  This afternoon Ingrid was getting a little over zealous....she has began waving her arms at you (okay, I'm trying to make this sound better...she has started the hitting) when she doesn't like something.  So we were playing on the floor and she got frustrated at started swinging her arms at me, so to address this behavior I looked at her and said "Ingrid, NO!" and gave her a little slap on the hand.  Immediately I felt that the situation was laughable.  Here I am, slapping my child on the hand because she was hitting.  Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in this? How can I teach her that hitting (or whatever else comes up in the future) is not acceptable behavior by a slap on the wrist or on the tush?  It seems to be nothing else but "fighting violance with violance".  

Once she reaches the appropriate age, we will most definitely steer away from "spankings" and move towards time outs, and inevitably, that will stop working eventually and we will have to find some other method of enforcement.  Because if I know one thing, it's that kid's are constantly changing. Until that time greets us, I will continue to examine our disciplinary actions with her....who said this discipline thing was easy?