parenting question

[bailewen]

On a serious note however, sleep habits vary from person to person, the 8 hour rule is actually less of a rule and more of a general guideline for most of the population. I do feel that you are correct in assuming that this is not the heart of the matter.

Dude, as far as parents of small children go, it's not only not a rule....it's more of a fairy tale.

Good luck Meeks!

With the kid and the wife. AFAIK, the who 60's revolution never happened in China so they tend to be about 50 years behind the times in terms of Psychology. It wasn't just drugs man. That was also a time when therapy and it's methods became mainstream. A lot of concepts we take for granted are still thought of as "batshit crazy" by most Chinese. How many Chinese people did you know that had been in therapy or even ever seen a therapist. How many Canadians.. . ..

Little kids....*shudder*....life seemed so simpler back when you could smack'em around a bit. I know it would be easier to control my class of 4th graders that way....*evil laugh* . . .

[shawnsegler]

She starts yelling at our daughter and making cruel remarks in chinese ...'ni fan si li' (you trouble me to death...basically "you're a pain in the ass".... and 'cui si' (not sure what that one means) but the delivery tone is pure vile anger at our kid (which is another huge concern to me and over the last 3 weeks I've talked to her about it an average of 3x a week to which she responds with "I'm tired").

That's straight up not ok, bro. You should really make sure to intervene if your wife can't control that. A child should never be mad to believe that they are inherently bad or the cause of something bad to their parent. That's like taking a knife to their fragile psyche's.

Talk with your wife beforehand and try and make some agreements to be able to switch off or go discuss it elsewhere so your daughter doesn't hear.

I think it's important to be firm with kids, but also to be infinitely forgiving. Constantly let them know they are loved even when you have to put on the thumbscrews (as it were). Use time outs judiciously, and sometime just change the subject for awhile and then get back to it when you're both feeling better.

Just be patient and while you don't have to treat them like grownups don't talk down to them.

Always remember: Children (anyone, really) are always TRYING to do the best with what they have. They want to please us. If they're confused about the right and wrong of something it's our fault for not explaining it to them either correctly or age appropriately.

I can actually reason with son now. He still gets crazy or disobeys as much as the next kid, but if I pull him aside and give him the "Ok, you tell me what the right thing to do here is" speech, if he's doing something he knows he shouldn't he gets a little ashamed and corrects it.

Good luck, bro.

Best,

S

P.S. One more time. Your child should never be scared of her parents or feel unloved or like the cause of something that's going wrong with one or both of their parents or most especially that there is something inherently bad with them...ever, ever, ever. EVER, EVER,EVER!!!

[bailewen]

Oh Shawn...you're such a Rogerian hippy.

[Baguaplayer]

The daughter is going through a stage and there are some great suggestions. In the end, it's just a stage.

Your wife is another matter and that is not a stage. When she is in her moments and going off that is actually a child state as well(don't tell her that!). This behavior will not likely change on it's own.

The only way to talk any sense to her is to have a conversation with her when she is not all worked up. It's sounds like she is in denial though and may not listen to you at all. I don't know, I'm not a professional. This sounds like ingraned behaviour that is not easily changed, but it IS curable.

Good luck.

[shawnsegler]

With the kid and the wife. AFAIK, the who 60's revolution never happened in China so they tend to be about 50 years behind the times in terms of Psychology. It wasn't just drugs man. That was also a time when therapy and it's methods became mainstream. A lot of concepts we take for granted are still thought of as "batshit crazy" by most Chinese. How many Chinese people did you know that had been in therapy or even ever seen a therapist. How many Canadians.. . ..

That's neat to know, Omar. It really explains a lot.

I know I hated being the victim of a psychologist mother that thought it was ok to experiment on her kids (really ) but it made me very comfortable with a lot of important concepts not the least of which is that if you can find a really good therapist then not only is therapy good, but that it's something we all need at different times to some extent, and that if you actually need it it's a straight up blessing.

Good mental health is really important and sometimes that just means going and opening up to an impartial stranger that you feel like you can trust. It's actually one of the reasons I think the Catholics have been so successful over the last couple thousand years.

Best,

S

[shawnsegler]

Oh Shawn...you're such a Rogerian hippy.

Omar, I was forcefed this kind of stuff from about the age of 6 on:

http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/ta.htm

No lies.

[shawnsegler]

Or as they would say, the child deserves "warm fuzzies" rather than "cold prickly's"



S

[bailewen]

Oh Shawn...you're such a Rogerian hippy.

Omar, I was forcefed this kind of stuff from about the age of 6 on:

http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/ta.htm

No lies.

Gaaak! Not TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS......

My Dad is a shrink. Didn't force feed me anything but our adult conversations over the years have been interesting. Here's a (not completely) off topic plug: http://www.drbelove.com/ It's the website I have been building for my dad. Not so much on parenting. More on dating for grownups.

As to the other thing, oh yeah, his parents just didn't talk about stuff. Back in the 50's only crazy people went to shrinks. My sister is married to a Guatemalan dude. Same kind of issues at play. He never read Carl Roger's, Adler or had the complete works of Milton Erikson sitting on the bookshelf....probably right next to "The Joy of Sex" or some other iconic 60's book. Getting back to the childrearing topic, one of my favorite stories ever from my sis, (aka Supermom!...seriously, she's no joke with the Mom business) is that she was having this big argument with her husband over telling their little one "No." Based on her understanding of developmental psychology that she had learned in the course of earning her teaching credential....kids at that age do not understand "no". You have to phrase everything in the positive. "Don't sit on the floor" has to be replaced with a positive alternative like "Sit on the sofa". "Don't make a mess" is not as effective as "Clean your room". ...stuff like that. So her husband bellows at one point, "Are you kidding me? Don't understand 'no'!?! My people (Mayan) invented ZERO! Of course she understands 'no'!"

[dragonprawn]

I have a three-year-old daughter. She will test the limits of mom much more than dad. I can hear chaos on the other end of the phone when I call home - which is not usually so bad as when I'm there. And yes, she is learning a few choice words in Philippino from my wife.

But most of the time she is very fun and sweet. And she is really mommy's little princess (daddy's too). I don't hink it would be that common for kids that age not to push little limits here and there. She gets picky about what she wants to wear and eat - it all seems very normal. We placed her in pre-preschool 3 hours a day and this helps (if nothing else it gives mom a break).

So just give her lots of love and remember that as fathers our primary duty is to keep them off the pole.

[Doc Stier]

Parenting Skills - Discipline

Probably the most important and controversial parenting skill is discipline. We parents are conflicted over what type of discipline to apply at what time. Appropriate discipline for a two year-old might not be appropriate or effective for a 10 year-old or a teenager. The most important piece of the discipline puzzle is determining who is in charge: the parents or the child. This may sound simple, but in this day and age, the answer isn't always clear.

The fear of hurting a child's feelings or crushing his spirit coerces many parents into allowing their children to rule the roost. Children need firm boundaries that come from clear and consistent parental discipline. Whether the method is redirection, time-outs, loss of privileges, grounding, extra chores, or spanking, it is crucial that we embrace our role to train our children to become moral, respectable adults.

http://www.allaboutparenting.org/parenting-skills.htm

[AllanF]

Most has already been said. I had the same problems with my wee one, she is 4.5 years old now and good as gold most of the time. But when she was 2 we went through it. Come dinner time she is still a pain in the ass.

I totally agree with Steve's comment about you both needing to be on the same page, the kids needs to see family unity, even if you disagree with you wife never show it in front of the kid. When Elaine (my daughter) was playing up i would turn it into a game and chase her around the bed, eventually i said i didn't want to play and didn't want tp put on her socks...thus flipping the situation she soon wanted me to put her socks on.

[shawnsegler]

My Dad is a shrink.

I know all about that shit, bro!

As to interesting conversations I just took this one (this thread) over to my Mom's this evening and we kind of went off on it for an hour or so. It was actually a pretty interesting topic...the socio-psychology of societies that have not yet experienced psychology.

Best,

S

[shawnsegler]

Oh and for the record, at 35 I just barely felt capable of handling being a parent. My mom did the best she could but having me at 17 that obviously was not very well. By the time she got around to my youngest sister who is 15 years my junior she had it figured out, but me and my sis who's 4 years younger were pretty much scarred for life.

Best,

S

[cgtomash]

When she does lose it on our daughter and I ask her to chill I get attacked because I say this gently in front of our daughter (eg: lin....*pause*...come on... [meaning come on, you're going to far]). When I bring it up later after our daughter goes to bed it's simply "I'm not sleeping well" or "you need to be tougher on her" (because I'm the patient/nurturing parent).

Dave,

It's been a while since my kids were 2 1/2, but the issue of how to parent with your spouse seems to be just as hard as they get older (they are 11,15,and 17"). First off, remember, women do not think the same as men, especially when they are emotional!

It took me a lot of years to figure some things out. In some ways we are the same as you and your wife. I am the easy going one, and my wife feels she has to be the hard ass, as I am too easy. That in itself is enough to cause conflict in a marriage. First off, even if you both don't agree on the same methods of parenting, you both need to get on the same page of how to deal with your daughter and be consistent with it. How you get there could be difficult, both might have to comprise.

DO NOT SAY ANYTHING TO YOUR WIFE IN FRONT OF YOUR CHILD! If you need to, ask her to come with you to another room and then address the issue away from your child. I say this for several reasons. If you say anything in front of your daughter then your wife will feel that you are undermining her authority with her daughter. She needs to know that you support her. If you don't agree with her, it is best to discuss it away from your daughter. This way even though she knows you don't agree with her, she knows that you support her authority when she is dealing with your daughter. Doesn't seem like much, but will mean a lot to your wife.

Personally I don't buy the "I'm tired/exhausted" excuse. She blames lack of sleep. I get an average of 5.5 - 6 hours sleep a night and she gets on average 8 - 8.5 hours.

As for being tired, if she is emotionally stressed and drained, having a lot of sleep may not make any difference. You cannot compare your sleep and energy level to hers. Being emotionally tired/exhausted is different than being physically tired/exhausted In fact (I believe) a lot of times people who are depressed actually sleep more as a result of the depression.

Good luck! I also agree with getting her to do something for herself, or with friends. Run a bath for her, light some candles, give her a book to read in the bath while you spend time with your daughter. Sounds like she needs time to de-stress.

[zenshiite]

We were having similar issues with our 4.5 year old this past summer since our cross country move. He refused to eat dinner, was constantly acting out etc etc. Still does sometimes. It was clearly a trauma regarding the move, loss of his friends from his pre-school, moving out of grandma's house, and to top it off... my authority and viability as a parent was(still is to a certain extent) compromised because in order to make the move happen I had to leave him and his mother for 3 months to earn the $$$ and find the housing we needed. Now, I didn't read it, but my wife did and she swears by it... it's a book called The Difficult Child. She was so exhausted and disorganized that it wasn't conducive to either of us... I can tolerate a bunch of shit for a long time, but eventually I'll really blow up. So she's tired and distraught trying to deal with him during the day while I'm at work, and I can take a bunch but eventually I'm the one that explodes. Fortunately my wife read this book, put into effect what she read, and it's helped us both deal with him better and he's acting better now.