Discipline. This is a scary word. Everyone has opinions about how it should be done. I’m going to try to not voice an opinion on what is or isn’t appropriate discipline. Instead I will stick with what we have done and the result.
From the time they were young, I used some form of time out with all of my children. I tried just having a time out spot, but that just did not work with Aurora. She would not stay, would not stop yelling or hitting or throwing things or whatever behavior it was I was trying to amend, and would not apologize. Her time outs had to be more removed. She had to go to her room. The problem is she would never go on her own…even when she wanted to be in her room. She would not give in to whatever I was asking. Ever. So I had to physically remove her from the presence of others and carry her to her room. You can imagine how the difficulty of doing so increased as she grew. And as she grew, the less likely I was to use that particular form of discipline.
If I could calm her down then I would be able to avoid physically moving her. If not, it was tricky because we would reach a point where she needed to be away from others for her own and our safety. If I had to carry her to her room then I knew I was in for a lot of screaming, kicking, scratching, and hitting. That is exhausting enough with a two-year-old. With an eight-year-old it is just a last resort.
One evening Ike and I decided to take our family out to dinner. Now, there are certain activities that we have to avoid or cut short in our family because of Aurora’s ODD. My other children have come to learn that we just have to do some things differently than other families. I have come to learn that I have to parent all of my children differently than I had planned because of Aurora. Our expectations have to adjust in order to fit the reality of our situation. No one wants to see an eight-year-old have a screaming fit in the middle of the store, a restaurant, or church especially that child’s mother. We have had to leave parties early, ban certain board games, end games early, send home friends, change the rules to certain games, and even change our vacation plans in order to better create an atmosphere of peace in our family. This is not to say we all just give in and let Aurora have whatever she wants so she doesn’t throw a fit. Nope. We just have learned to adjust to what we think she can handle. Sometimes Ike and I push that boundary a little…just to see if we can get away with doing something.
Like going out to dinner.
Aurora doesn’t do well in confined spaces, especially if she is expected to sit still. Restaurants are always a little tough because you inevitably have to wait at least a little while to get your food. Ike and I had a few good tools up our sleeves for when we had to wait. We had lots of playful songs to sing with our kids. We liked to play word and I Spy games with them. Sometimes just a pencil and paper would be enough to distract our kids. However, just before a meal was one of the worst times to try to cheer up or distract Aurora. When she was hungry and bored, she would get angry no matter how creative my rhymie stymie was.
We had to be pretty selective about where we took our kids to eat out. We didn’t do a lot of sit-down restaurants with them. There was just too much sitting and down time. However, on Matthew’s tenth birthday, when Aurora was eight, Ike and I decided to take the kids to a sit-down restaurant to celebrate.
As we were seated at our table, one of the first things I did was to grab the little electronic pad sitting on the end of our table and stick it backwards against the wall, so that it wasn’t a distraction. I knew the kids would want to play the little games they have on there, but I knew those things charged you for every game you played on them. I did not want to spend my dinner paying extra for my kids to fight over a tablet. Whose idea was it to have those at each table? Surely that person does not have multiple children.
We ordered our food and began the wait. We played our word games and Ike and I were mostly successful in keeping Aurora and Xander, our two wanderers, in their seats. The kids’ meals were brought to us in a timely manner for which we were grateful.
Miri took three bites and announced she was done. Yeah, that’s to be expected, I guess.
Xander took no bites and announced he also was done. Great.
Aurora and Matthew actually ate their meals, but because they had received them so quickly, they were done before Ike and I had started.
Ike and I tried to quickly eat once we had our meals, but there was no way around the fact that our children were now waiting…again.
At least they weren’t hungry and waiting.
“Sit down, Aurora,” I said for maybe the tenth time.
“I’m bored,” she answered.
“Sit down anyway.”
One minute later…
“Sit down, Aurora.”
“I’m just looking.”
“Ok. Now sit down.”
One minute later…
“Sit down, Aurora.”
“Can I go to the bathroom?” asked Aurora.
“Yes,” I sighed.
Ike and I finished our dinners in a bit more peace after Aurora left for the restroom. We paid our bill and we’re packing up our things when Ike said, “Where’s Aurora?”
“Blast. Still in the bathroom, I guess,” I said as I went to go find her.
A waitress stopped me on my way to the bathroom. “Are you looking for a little girl?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She pointed to the other side of the restaurant to a mostly out of sight table. The waitress probably thought I wasn’t a very responsible parent because there was Aurora,sitting with a table tablet on her lap playing game after game.
“You know, you really should have to pay for those games,” the waitress said. She had followed me over to where Aurora was sitting. Yep. She definitely thought I wasn’t a very responsible parent.
Aurora looked up sheepishly as I stared down at her.
“But I guess we will let it go this time,” said the waitress looking now at Aurora’s face.
“Great.” My insincere smile lasted only a second as I marched Aurora out the front door.
The scene in the car was not so great.
It consisted of many statements from me that began with, “You can’t…” and retorts from Aurora that mostly started with, “But I…”
We arrived home with a very angry Aurora. She continued to argue as we walked in the house. Unfortunately, her anger continued to escalate when I asked everyone to meet together for scripture reading and prayers. I knew I had pushed too hard when she completely lost control and began throwing everything she could reach.
“You need to go to your room until you can calm down,” I said.
“No!” she screamed. “I hate you. You never let me do what I want to do. It’s always what you want to do.”
Ducking a flying shoe, I approached her as carefully as I could and grabbed her around the waist. However, there was no way I could physically carry her to her room while she was flailing. Ike and I together, carried her to her room and locked her door.
Seething, she looked around for anything she could destroy. Anything that might actually make me upset. She settled on a nail holding up a picture on her wall. Using the nail that she pulled out of the wall, she carved the words, “I hate Mommy!” into her door.
This was not the first time she had used vandalism to punish me. A couple of times she filled up cups with water from her bathroom sink and dumped them all over her carpet. One time she took a bottle of finger nail polish and covered her door and walls. Another time she took every item from every drawer and dumped it into a big pile in the center of her room.
Eventually I unlocked her door and entered her room. By that point she had calmed considerably, so I offered a hug.
“You can join us when you are ready,” I said and turned to go back out. That’s when I saw the words carved on the door. Ouch. I sighed, exhausted, and left her room.
Since that time, I can’t really remember ever having to carry Aurora to her room. She seemed to learn, finally, that sometimes she needed to be away from other people. She still does not separate herself without a fight. That is not her way. It has just become a little easier to make it happen. Generally now I say, “Aurora you need to be in your room for a while.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry, remaining here is not an option.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can go now, or you can lose your dessert privilege tonight.”
“Ugh. I’m going. Can’t you see.”
And she will go up to her room.
And she will do it without destroying anything.
So maybe you are wondering if she ever does lose her dessert privilege. Yes.
Are my methods of discipline the right ones? I really don’t know. I always thought discipline should mostly be natural consequences, but sometimes natural consequences are not immediate enough for Aurora. She only sees the ‘right now’. If a disciplinary tactic doesn’t encourage a child to make the right decision the next time, then it isn’t working. On the other hand, if a child only does the right thing to avoid punishment, then I don’t really think the right lesson is being learned either. But with Aurora often she will only do right so that she can have certain privileges. Sometimes that’s the best we can do in a sticky situation. I try to use a lot of positive reinforcement, but it’s usually not enough to affect Aurora’s immediate behavior. And sometimes, let’s face it, there is just no positive behavior to reinforce.
Ike and I have chosen not to use physical punishment like spanking in our house. One very trying day, however, I threatened Aurora with a spank. She instantly turned that against me with, “Well, you said we can only spank someone if we are married to them.”
Yes, I may have said that at some point.
Sometimes Aurora is so angry she absolutely does not care which privileges she loses. Then, instead of punishment, I must seek for calming tactics again like spending time with her, distracting her, and reading to her.
Usually a hug has a far greater effect than a punishment.
Aurora has always loved to be read to. Ike and I started reading to our kids when they were little and somehow that has stuck even as they have reached ages where they can read themselves. When Aurora has had a rough day, I know at least that we can spend twenty minutes together as I read out loud to her before she sleeps. I treasure this time with her. She has never turned me away or told me she doesn’t want me to read to her. I believe she needs that connection over and over again as a reassurance that I will love her no matter what.
Removing privileges and then loving on my child. This is my disciplinary action plan. In my church we often quote a scripture about how when needed we reprove others with sharpness and then show forth an increase of love toward them (Doctrine and Covenants 121:43). There’s no real shortcut answer to how to deal with my daughter. It’s fluid, ever changing and messy. In other words, I am basically making it up as I go. But I generally stick to loving her. That is never a failure in parenting.