Monday, June 10, 2013

On Parenting

Guess what? Evie isn't hitting anymore! I was so proud of myself for helping her to curb that nasty habit.

And then she started biting.

She's a feisty one. There's something bizarre about seeing your funny, cuddly, blue eyed baby coming at you like a vampire or an angry dog.

The aggressive behavior always begins with Lila. Evie will test out her backlash on Lila first, and when I least expect it she uses this line of defense on me. Seth fully believes she "got it from somewhere". He keeps asking me where she could have picked it up. It's my current belief that kids are born with a set of reactionary measures. Some kids scream at you and some just cry. Others hit, bite, kick, and push. It's just their gut reaction. If Lila takes something from Evie she's going to be assaulted. It's just the way it is. We work on it and hope that it stays in the family. I can work through it with Lila, but when your kid continually bites another kid not related to them things get dicey...so I've heard anyway.

Dealing with things like this are one of the pitfalls of parenting. Just like everything else, you read and you discuss until you are blue in the face with advice. Then you try to make an educated choice about the "best" way to handle a situation. In the end, you may try three, four, or five things until you reach some sort of solution. That, or you remain consistent until they grow out of it. Regardless, it's all one big, fat guessing game.

On top of this, we are working on weaning from the pacifier. I'm not going to say it's going great. The minute those types of phrases enter the universe you can't take them back. Inevitably, you say something like that and you might as well pretend you never started trying to change a behavior in the first place. It's like saying, "oh look at that child! My daughter will never behave that way". You might as well teach her how to behave poorly because saying something like that means IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.

I will say that I'm hopeful for the passy weaning. We are taking the approach that the passies now live in her bed. She can get in her bed and have a "passy break", but they cannot leave her bed. When she wakes up she has to leave them in her bed so that they can "go back to sleep". This has been going on for a week. Some days she takes as many as five passy breaks, and other days she takes one. She will ask for it sometimes when we are in the car or out and about, but I just tell her they are at home in the bed waiting for her to come nap or go to bed. We shall see! She's totally down with it for now.

The bonus is, Lila feels she now needs thumb breaks. Thumb sucking is such a different animal. You can't take a thumb away. With a kid like Lila you can't punish or discuss it because it just makes her want to do it more. I had no idea that weaning Evie would make any difference to Lila. I have noticed she sucks her thumb MUCH less. SCORE!

What difficult habits or behavior issues have you had to really work on and sort out over time? I feel like there have to be so many examples...do tell.

3 comments:

  1. My youngest was a biter too! I think it was in that phase where she was learning to talk more, but couldn't express herself yet completely...it will pass, I promise!

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  2. Oh Evie! She and Isabel are a lot a like. Isabel also hits and has bit in the past, thankfully that has calmed down. We are working on her BaBa (her term for passy). For now, she can have it in the car and in her crib. Trying to wean the car passy but it's been difficult. I'm interested to see how the passy weaning progresses with Evie- might have to try your way!!! Good luck.

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  3. Also- I too believe that Isabel is just wired that way. She has a nasty temper and has since she was tiny. It's just who she is and how she deals with it. I don't think she picked up anywhere! :)

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