I am having issues with disiplining my daughter. I now realize after some clarity that every child has problems with discipline. My Kai is mosty a well-behaved child but it seems more and more lately she is testing me to see how far she can push me. I do not spank her, I do raise my voice and on occasion have yelled at her, but mostly out of anger at her for not really listening to me.

General punishments are time outs in a chair that is in the corner, standing with her nose in the corner, loss of movie time and early bedtime. These seem to have worked so far but are working thinly as of late. I need new ideas. I will not use physical punishment against her however. I was beaten growing up and I know spanking is different to most people but to me it's the same thing. I just won't do it.

I am also having a problem with my stepmom, mom and sister correcting me about Kai or telling her she can do something when I say no. I'm sick of it and I'm tired of not being the parent in control with them. I am at the ropes end so to speak with that issue and will be taking care of it soon.

Well I'm going to come up with a list of things I can do for punishments. Anyone has any suggestions that dont involve physical pain??

I'm a spanking parent for bigger issue's

time out and remove privileges for minor stuff..

but Sarah instead of a list make a wheel and have her spin it

that would be neat

Oh Yeah, that would get me the look of "mom, are you stupid." lol I get that every now and then.

i just need to be more firm. I'm a softie and give in and I need to not do that. I dont make her sit in time out long, about a minute when it should be two. Those big blue eyes with alligator tears come up to me and I just melt.

lol...i gotta say that I've never been accused of being a softie. It is important to hold firm until the kid understands that only solution is for them to shape up.

I do sometimes worry that my son is going to grow up thinking of me as an overbearing authority figure though. I common line that I use with him is: "Trust me...I don't like forcing you to do the things that you have to do. It'd make everything much easier if you just do what you're supposed to do on your own, and then we could go back to being friends."

Kids are all so different though...I'm not sure any one method of disclipine works for them all.

Oh tragic meltdown last night. She yelled at me and I said "alright, no movie and no popsicle, off to bed." You would have thought I smacked her!!! LMAO

So I put her in timeout and she threw herself on the floor.

we do timeout on a rug in the kitchen.. it is 2 minutes now, but when he turns three i'll add another minute. I also demand that when timeout is over he apologizes for what he did and gives hugs and kisses or go back into timeout... if he did something to a friend, he has to go to them and give them the hug and say sorry. Or clean up whatever mess he made.

When it is at bedtime, and timeout is pointless, b/c it gets him out of bed - i'll say no videos the next day or no train (his favorite toy).

I think it is good to keep age appropriate expectations, but not to let that get him away with things...

tobi certainly has his crazy days though... when that happens, i'll try and give him some extra run around time to "work out the sillies"

I am new at being a parent, and widowed a little over a year ago so I don't know how good my advice is. I wrote and posted a list of rules: 1) No Hitting, 2) Mommy checks your teeth and then I wrote out another page entitled: When Alex Hits. It lists out step by step what Mommy will do: recognize Alex is upset, say no, hold hands and say no, distract, announce consenquences, follow through with them. I think it is hard to be consistent with the type of consequence because of changing situations: the bathtub, going to bed, in the airport security line etc. I mainly wrote the list out to remind myself to be consistent. I think consistency is the key and recognize a new plan make take a few weeks to be successfull.

I forgot to add. My time out is until he calms down. Otherwise it's two minutes, he runs out of the corner to hit me again (because he is still mad he didn't get his way) and the cycle continues. I think he is intellectually ahead but not emotionally. He knows his ABCs, can count objects correctly up to ten, but still hits mommy when he isn't getting his way. I didn't want to, but I tried spanking which just fueled the fire. The more pissed I get, the more pissed he gets. Yeah, I know...the apple doesn't fall far from the tree

The only thing that really worked for me when my son was little was making him sit in time out, although once when he REALLY ticked me off I put him in bed at about 4:30 in the afternoon. I left him up there for probably an hour! After that, when I threatened him with "do you want to go to bed RIGHT NOW?" he knew I meant it. Now that he's 9, I have to take away his very favorite thing. For lying to me this year about something that happened in school, he lost it for 10 days. The worst 10 days of his life, but I bet it's awhile before he lies again!

Biggest thing I've learned that as a parent I can do for discipline is consistency. No matter what you use as a negative consequence for the action, make sure its the same thing every time. Also to follow thru on what I said. If I said no cookie, then I can't turn around and give it to them anyway, as much as I want to (and believe me, I sooo want to!!)

Also, I try Magic 1-2-3 techniques (from a book I glanced at somewhere). Basically they get three chances to try again. First "offense" - warning, 2nd minor consequence (I usually tap dd's hand lightly as a reminder) and 3rd time major consequence (time out, removal of privilege, whatever).

Now all I have to do is say "That's 1" and I usually get a response.. rarely do I have to get to 2 anymore.

I think what made things easiest is that I started with discipline as soon as I knew she knew what she was doing was against the rules. And believe me.. she showed that early (at 9 months!! the looks she would give me, grrr! lol such an independent girl..) She learned early that while she may have a strong will, mama's is stronger, and she can push all she likes, she's still not going to win.

And every disciplinary action was and is followed by talking about what happened, what could have been a better choice and reassurance that I (and now my husband) still love her, no matter what.

The way I discipline is I have a red card and yellow card that I just did up on the computer and laminated. All my kids (from 2yrs - 9yrs) know that if they get shown the yellow card it is the warning then if it happens again they get the red card and then get the punishment - big kids have to go to their room little kids have to go to timeout. When I show the cards I don't say anything to them or look at them so they are not getting any "positive" reinforcement but if they do their punishment correctly and they appologize then they get a cuddle from whoever they have been "naughty" to. It works great with my kids - I have four and go into the supermarket and do my food shopping (this takes about 2 hours) without any tantrums - I just take the cards with me. And yes my kids do have timeout in the supermarket I just take the red mat that they have to sit on with me and they have to sit on it in the aisle (it's only a small bathmat), I get funny looks but I find it preferable then the looks I get if my children are misbehaving.