We ran a few errands today, one of which was a trip to Target to order Dominic's birthday cake (one week from today! we're getting a Pokeman sheet cake with buttercream frosting, mmmm) and to get a few dorm supplies for Jenny's upcoming move. Anna wanted to look at toys which I was very clear wasn't an option on this trip. She was doing pretty good and I even let her pick out a new backpack, but then on the way to area rugs, she got angry that we weren't stopping in the toy section. I won't get into every nitty gritty thing that happened but I did end up putting her in a timeout in the middle of the store. I made her sit down and take some deep breaths... I just wanted three minutes from her in the hopes that she could turn it around on her own. She threw her shoes at me. Threw her shoes.
Then it escalated.
We went to the car. Actually, I had to physically move her out of the store while she was hitting me and calling me names. She was also knocking items off the shelves as we walked past. I stayed so calm on the outside.
Once we got home, I talked with Curtis first... she had a similar incident with me a couple weeks ago... I felt like we needed to do something different than just timeouts, grounding, and taking away privileges. So after discussing it, we decided to take away her baby dolls. All of them. She has to earn them back one at a time. I feel like there is some trigger in there... not getting what she wants and feeling powerless. She was worse when the Risperdal was failing but those behaviors felt different to me, like her lack of impulse control was truly out of her control.
I had her help me box up her precious dolls. I think she understood what we were doing but I felt so mean. This is one of the hardest part of parenting... disciplining with love. I cannot allow her to behave like she did today and I have to find a way to teach her to stop. This is so hard. Because of her attention span and play skills, we're letting her earn one doll back at lunchtime and another at dinner based on good behavior. I hope it works.
Holly - this form of discipline sounds completely normal. I hope that it is one that Anna can grasp and the thoughts of behavior 'consequences' helps her with control issues. Love, Dad
ReplyDeleteI know it was hard to do. This is the EXACT thing we do in our house. Sophie went through a TERRIBLE hitting stage. Each time she hit, we removed one of her beloved toys from her room and placed it on the fridge. That particular toy had to stay there until she had 3 hit free days. It was TORTURE at first...because she whined and cried and had tantrums about it. BUT, it WORKED. She hasn't hit in MONTHS. She used to hit ANY TIME she was frustrated with something. She really caught onto the concept (which for her is amazing) of hit=lose toy. We are now implementing this same thing for Max, although he is having a harder time grasping it, and I am thinking he may be too young just yet. I hope this technique works well for Anna. BTW, I went through Maxie's baby clothes and realized the diaper box I was going to mail them in is way to small. As soon as I find a larger box they will be on their way.
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