Charlyn’s Web

It’s amazing how kids, with the same parents, can be so different.

Hans being the first born, didn’t have other kids around much to take away his toys. There were occasions when there would be other kids in the nursery at church, and kids being kids, eventually someone would take a toy away from Hans. I remember seeing the most surprised look on his face and he’d just stand there. Then he’d go find something else to play with, if an adult didn’t step in and make the other kid give it back.

Kirsten had an older sibling to take things away but it didn’t happen much because Hans was 2 ½ years older, and a boy, and not interested in what she was playing with. If other kids took things away from her she may have hit but most likely she would have whined- which is an ongoing condition with her.

Then along came Talia, just 18 ½ months after her older sister. If something is taken away from her she doesn’t look surprised, she doesn’t whine, no, my little Sunshine will track them down and beat the snot out of them.

This is a dilemma because she likes many of the things her sister is playing with, so instead of being the kid that something is being taken away FROM , she is the kid doing the taking. If she doesn’t get what she wants then she shrieks in that shrill voice of hers and if that doesn’t intimidate then she resorts to physical violence.

The other day, I was trying to read something on the computer when the most awful shrieking penetrated my consciousness. I looked over to see Kirsten curled up in a ball on the floor with Talia on top of her beating on her with a toy cleaning brush, both of them screaming. Talia had wanted something that there was one of, and Kirsten wasn’t about to let her have it. Then Talia, after being punished, wouldn’t listen to advice to find something similar to play with, and kept voicing and showing her displeasure. She spent time in her bed where she could think about the error of her ways. Yeah, right. At least I could close the door on the noise.

The girls weigh about the same, and since Talia is shorter she has a little more force behind her. And she is not afraid to use it. I’ve seen her take Hans down. He towers over her and out weights her by 20 pounds but I have seen her grab him by the legs and throw him to the ground. Bully and Brute are often used in the same sentence with the name Talia.

With each kid, we have attempted to find the discipline technique that works best for their personalities. I found an effective discipline to use for Hans was to take away one of his favorite toys of the moment, either a train or a plane. At times, I had quite a fleet of planes on top of the refrigerator. That hasn’t worked with Kirsten because she hasn’t attached to the toys, but two things that do seem to work is isolating her and taking away reading time. I seem to be able to work around her obstinacy by giving her choices. Sometimes the choice is “you do it or I will do it for you”; she doesn’t like that. Now, Talia will be another challenge to find her “trigger.” So far, she hasn’t attached much to toys, although she loves books. If she gets upset there is just no talking to her. I guess we’ll just have to keep exploring possibilities as we go along.

Ah, the journeys we take. And they say the journey is the best part. I doubt they meant the Journey to the Best Way to Discipline Your Child. There are so many different roads to take, so many different opinions and if the wrong path is chosen you could end up with a real bully and a brute.