Interesting article from Slate: Why you shouldn't hit your kids.
Three is a tough age. Cha can be mean, brutal actually. Over the past week while she was sick and then recovering she told me countless times that I'm no longer her friend. She has said she doesn't love me and tells me to leave. Payback for the way I treated my mother? Most definitely!
She can be such a challenge that sometimes I just want to smack her on the bottom. Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I am to allow a 40 lb child to disrespect me and treat me so poorly. I wouldn't allow a grown up to use the same words without standing up for myself, why should I take it from a child. My child.
The very second Cha was born my first thought was 'Wow, she's her own person.' I felt a bit of a disconnect and a giant sense of responsibility. And not only responsibility but accountability. I could not do as I pleased to this child because she was her own person with her own rights. If a stranger on the street walked up and smacked her on the bottom couldn't that stranger be arrested for assault? What makes it okay for a parent to do it? And wouldn't it do more harm coming from someone she loved and trusted?
Regardless, my little babe was a blank slate with so many needs and I had to help her become a healthy, socially responsible, mentally stable, self confident woman.
Like I've always said about raising kitties - Don't break their spirit!
ITA, I knew from that first moment that Willa was definitely her own person. Confusing as anything but so true. Three is such a mixed up age. They are so totally rotten and so amazingly smart and loving. It all depends on which day it is!
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think they know they have you and that there's not a darn thing you can do about it. So, it's time for work, she won't put on clothes, and the attitude is basically "whattareya gonna do about it, eh????" Can't throw her back in her room, because it's time to go. No amount of talking stops the fit, and I'm not about to put her in the car in her undies at 0 degrees. (DH would, though!).
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