Discipline
I've never been a very disciplined person. Meaning I didn't have much discipline from my parents as a child, rebelled against the little they tried to provide when I was a teen, and have never really gotten the whole self-discipline thing very well. I am working on it, and I'm now working on providing more concrete, firm discipline for Bella as needed. I practice gentle discipline, I do not believe in spanking. I do think that children require limits and guidance and I am trying to give that to her. For example, she will take my water bottle, drink, and then throw it on the ground and walk off. I'm now finding a way to make her go back, pick it up, give it to me, and wipe up the water she got all over the place.
This really consists of me helping her every step of the way, but still, I figure she is learning, right? I've also started doing very gentle time-outs when I'm not sure what else to do with her, especially when she is hitting. Quite often she is hitting HERSELF which is horrible to see, and I hate it so much! I discussed it with her pediatrician and apparently it is normal, but that doesn't make it better for me. I have tried eighty zillion different ways of reacting to see if anything makes a difference, and, nope, it doesn't. So now if she is just out of control hitting herself or me or trying to hit the dog, I take her into our spare room, sit her on the bed, and tell her to just take a minute and I will be right back. I'm not yelling, or shaming, or telling her she is bad. I very much want her to understand that it is ok to feel what she is feeling, and she knows she can hit a pillow or the couch all she wants. But hitting herself or others is absolutely not ok.
Today I really lost my shit with her though: sign me up for Worst Mommy in the World. We were on a walk in the woods, and this was our last walk for a while, after what she put me through! She just wants to run away from me. For a while I would holler, "Bye!" and walk in the other direction, and that worked, a little. But now she is like, "Whatever! I do what I want!" and ignores me completely. Miss Smartie Pants knows darned well that I won't really leave her. But she is allowing herself to get so far from me that it scares me to death! And then I wind up having to go back and get her, and of course you know what happens next, right? She runs the other way! After the third time of her doing this I grabbed her and kind of shrieked in a very out of control way: "DO NOT RUN FROM MOMMY!" Arggghh, yeah, the whole shrieking banshee thing is sure to bring her running in my direction! I then plonked her in the stroller, buckled her in tight, and headed for home, fuming! FUMING! I walked past someone on the trail who I feel certain heard my panicked shrieks, because he sure gave me a weird look.
It sucks, because I adore watching her in the woods. She loves it! She runs and runs, little chubby legs flying, and she now will say, while she runs... "I RUU-IINNNNG!" *siiiigh* I adore her. I adore every little chubby iota. I wish I had a better solution for the running away stuff. If you have any ideas, feel free to share!