For two days I've told myself
"I'm just going to ignore her duplicitous conduct."
But it is sooooo hard because I feel so compelled to let her know that I am cognizant of her intent.
She puts a major amount of effort into her knavery, but
I'm pretty good at spotting deceit, even when I am not looking for it. It always takes me aback when I see other people's children deceiving their parents and those parents act absolutely clueless. I am absolutely horrified and sickened when I sense adults deceiving one another and I struggle with offended feelings when people are not forthright with me.
As my husband says, I have a VERY strong sense of justice. I got it from my mother.
However, the other day Missy got me and got me good
and she revealed her conquest several hours later
in public.
WOWZA!
I am alarmed.
If I completely take no notice and remove myself from her ploys will it take the fun out of it for her? Will it make it less important to her?
Easier said than done.
Sometimes it's an issue of safety. Sometimes it feels like we are condoning the behavior to let it go. She's so good at it she has it down to a science and sometimes she's got people's feelings hurt before they even know what happened.
How can you teach new behavior if you just ignore things? Or, how can you keep your expectations at a livable level if you don't require them to live by those expectations?
Here is an over simplistic example of an expectation I have. When I call, I expect my child to respond to me in some way. But in truth, I call the child and they don't respond. I call and call again. They continue to ignore.... when I am right in their face they act like they just finally heard me. This happens EVERY TIME I call either child. They undoubtedly heard me. I often hear one say to the other, Mom is calling you. When I question them on it, they say, "Because I don't want to answer you!" YET, they say"MOM! Mommy, Mom, Mama" a thousand times a day and demand that I answer them whether I am on the phone, talking to someone at the table, reading, writing, working, helping someone else, they demand recognition immediately, but they will pretend they never heard me. If I put the child in time out for not responding to me.... then they start playing the One-UP-on- You-game.
2 comments:
My solution for that has been to call Thier name twice, the third time I will lower my voice just a bit and say "ice cream". 9 times out of 10 my kids will then come running. But if you heard me call for ice cream and didn't answer my when I called your name, then you have been deceitful. Diecietful children can not have ice cream. Just to keep it interesting, I do occasionally serve ice cream at random times.
This is so difficult for me. I have struggled with this very same question when dealing with Delaney.
Delaney is CONSTANTLY trying to manipulate, control, cause reaction, GET ATTENTION. Seriously, her goal in life is to get attention. She can not stand it when she is not being noticed, but this all goes back to control. If she has attention then she has control. Period.
But, the real bottom line, IMHO, is that she does not feel safe or loved when she is not the center of attention. Fear and the need for love is what is behind all her motivations. And this is so frustrating to me. I know in my heart I should understand her fear but after three years of pouring my heart, soul, attention, prayers, affection, unconditional love...into her and our relationship, you would expect that she could feel safe for at least small amounts of time without my undivided attention. Nope.
So, do I ignore sometimes? Yes. Do I give the attention sometimes? Yes Is there a concrete, always the answer, kind of answer to this? no. I don't think so.
When I can give positive, loving, affirming attention that is going to assure her I love her then I give it. When I am at the end of my rope I ignore and remove myself all together from the situation.
If she is in danger I always intervene but even then, I don't make a big deal of it. Delaney loves to cause a reaction. Simple attention is not enough for her. She wants that big, bang, boom when it comes to attention. When she doesn't get that from me it does take some of the fun out of it for her. It doesn't stop her attempts but it does seem to slow her down a bit. :)
Your question: "How can you teach new behavior if you just ignore things? Or, how can you keep your expectations at a livable level if you don't require them to live by those expectations?" My two have been with us long enough they KNOW the rules. They KNOW my expectations. I would think your two do too. I have a tendency to ignore the behavior at the time (if it is not disrupting the family) but when putting them to bed (after the day is done and all their crazy is over) I mention that I was not pleased and I am disappointed in their choice about X thing they disobeyed about. We talk about it and I ask them what they should have done and I give them a couple of scenarios for them to walk through in their mind and tell me what they should do. This reinforces the rule and lets me and them know that they KNOW what to do the next time it comes up. I think this corrects, without the attention/drama, and it lets them know I am keeping them safe because I am aware of their error.
Parenting hurt children is hardest thing I have ever done and I make mistakes often. This particular thing mentioned in this post is probably one of my most difficult things to deal with. (Can you tell by how long my comment is? LOL)
You are a great mom and you are doing a great job!!!!!! Hang in there.
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