Dr Phil recommends that when a toddler is acting spoilt and throwing their weight around, the best thing you can do as a parent is to ignore the child completely and move on like you have not heard what they are doing.
My father on the hand – through action – suggests that when a toddler is acting otherwise, when they can’t be reasoned with, as a parent you a required to smack a child until they realise that what they are doing is unacceptable behaviour.
These are diametrically opposed points of view about dealing with screams and toy throwing behaviour. As a father of an 18 month old, I find myself at that cross roads again. My boy, Sam, has suddenly become a terror. He has found his screaming voice and it would give Canary (the comic book character, not the bird… the one who is in fishnet stockings and has a long term relationship with Green Arrow…No? She has screaming powers… Still no?) Anyway, Sam’s scream would give Canary a run for her money. But it’s not so much the ear-drum ripping effects of the scream but the indiscriminate application of said scream. If he falls and hurts himself? SCREAM! If he bashes his head on the table? SCREAM! If he is being bullied by his older siblings? SCREAM! But then when he is marginally interested in the apple in your hand? SCREAM! If he doesn’t want the apple you offer him? SCREAM! When it’s bed time? SCREAM! If a plane flies over a church in Nigeria? SCREAM! At some point this SCREAM needed to be engaged.
Last night, there were “I don’t wanna sleep in a cot” issues. They resulted in the application of the SCREAM tactic. Liberal father that I am, I tried to apply the Dr Phil technique. I ignored him…for 90 minutes. He. Did. Not. Stop. For 90 minutes. (How is it that children can scream for that long without losing their voices? I propose that a governmental task team to investigate this… Your tax monies working for you, right there) I digress. The Dr Phil method did not work. At this point I thought to apply the My Dad technique. A smack to the hand for every SCREAM he unleashed. It really took him a significantly short space of time for him to realise that the SCREAM thing was closely linked to the stinging sensation to the back of the hand… ergo: Dr Phil – 0 My Dad – 1.
Now I must stress that I am not advocating for beating children. I am talking about an age appropriate smack when a wrong vs right needs to be highlighted. This is applicable ONLY when a child cannot be reasoned with and all other alternatives have been exhausted. I’ve found that with my kids I have seldom had to give more that 2 (3Max) smack EVER per child.
I’ve also noticed that a closer bond happens between the smacked child and myself once peace and explanations and declarations of love have been communicated and understood.
I stress again: Smacking is not Beating as Swimming is not Drowning. My dad is right, sorry Dr Phil.
Start them early…
It’s a tough thing balancing a relationship with your children and your spouse/partner is a blended family. Firstly there’s the issue of time: The arrangement we have is that on weekends (3 out of four) all the children come to my house. This is fantastic for the kids,cos it’s hangout time with siblings, bonding time with me…which is great… and “Daddy always makes plans for the weekend to do something fun.” (Guilt parenting is not entirely absent from the equation but that’s not what we are talking about here)
The thing is my lady and I work very hard during the week and where most people use the weekend to rest, We look after, entertain and herd 5 children. As fun as this is, I’m aware that mother does quite a lot of the heavy lifting in that dynamic.
The children that my lady is co-parenting are mine. She does this so well that contrary to the evil step mother image sold to us by Snow White, Cinderella and other princesses, my lady has the kids voluntarily calling her “Mom.”
For this, I am deeply grateful. I don’t know howI would do this without you.
So yes, I am raising mine, But I have significant help.
quite moments where Sam walks over to me, puts his head down and passes out.
Finding Heroes for my children…
Raising Mine
It’s been a while since I wrote for this blog. Much has happened since then. My youngest born has started walking. Yaay!! This is both a great thing and a terrible thing: He is more independent, but he is also getting himself into a lot of trouble. So my lady and I have found ourselves needing to make the house safe. Stairs have security gates at the top…which can be very frustrating if you are chasing a ringing phone and you’re on the wrong side of that gate, or when you walk to the kitchen at night, in the dark and painfully bump into the gate.
Now, I’ve been very close to all my children. I’ve watched them learning to smile, crawl, walk, run, cartwheel and one day i’ll watch them learn to drive. Thereafter, I will have to watch them take care of their own flat, house, marriage and so on.
So it occurred to me that parenting, while it is an exercise in equipping your young ones to the best of your ability or to the best of your commitment, is also the process of letting go.
There is something bitter sweet in this “letting go” process. For instance, each time one of my children reached crawling stage, they began exploring their world beyond the reach of their arms. A toy that was in the corner of the room suddenly didn’t need daddy to be reached. This was fantastic because I enjoyed watching their new found freedom but it meant less physical contact with me.
As they learnt to walk so that contact became less. I continued to celebrate their independence but yearned for little bodies that used me as the jungle-gym, clambering over me and demanding to be held. Now my job is to soothe when the world has caused hurt. I blow on boo-boos, wipe tears, seal wound, cuts and grazes with plaster. When the hurt is gone they go back into the world. it is beautiful and painful thing to watch.
One day, they won’t need me to even blow on boo-boos, clothe or feed them. They will be their own grown men and women. Even if they remain 13months old to my eye.
Then I remember the famous quote: Your children really aren’t your children. They come through you, not from you.
Then I’m reminded: My children are not my possession. They come through me, trusting that I will do the best for them and then release them into the world.
What the photo doesn’t convey is flurry of questions – about everything – that I’m being asked at that moment. Including “what are trees made of?” And “Is Nelson Mandela buried here?” And “why are brown people treated badly?”
It’s rare to have all of us in one picture. This is one of those rare times.
On the day after the passing of Mandela, my lady and I took mine and my parents to lay flowers where Mandela was arrested, near Howick. This was a good family outing and the children asked me questions that required me to explain colonization, apartheid and why “brown people are always poorer.”
I am sitting in my bedroom listening to no.5 snore and battle to find his dummy. He does this without opening his eyes. There is just a trusting knowledge that someone will be close enough and paying attention enough to find his dummy and gently put it to his lips so that all he has to do is open his mouth and the dummy will magically go in.
The other children: two, three and four are fed, teeth are brushed, prayers are said and they are in bed. One is at a friends for a sleep-over. (‘Not sure how I feel about those, but that’s another story)
After a long day of loud, untidy and emotional “tata can I have this” and “tata, she hit me in the eye,” a day of swerving across for lanes to get into a mall you were passing because “tata, I need to wee and it’s heavy. I cant hold it,” the house is finally quiet.
My lady has spent the afternoon with the girls and she deserves it – after a week of diapers, hugs from dirty, muddy arms, cooking food for little people who will reject it on principle.
So today has really been about me and the kids. My feet are a testament to this as they throb hotly in the distance behind my lap-top screen.
Farther in the distance, ontop of the low TV stand, next to my wallet and TV remote is a flimsy piece of paper that has become a great weight on my psyche since it arrived. I orbit this paper with disgust. Sometimes I find myself wanting to scream at it: ” How dare you come into this house?”
But I don’t.
The flimsy piece of paper is a court summons requiring me to appear in court for “failing to pay (a large sum) of money for maintenance.”
It sits like an elephant in the bedroom. A finger of accusation saying what I have been contributing is regarded as not enough. Each time my eye lands on it, a vial of toxic bile drips from my throat onto my heart and threatens to choke me in a sea of rage.
Before I continue, let me rattle off some facts. I vowed to myself that whatever happens between me and the mothers has nothing to do with my responsibilities to my children. I have no love for men who don’t take care of their children; financially or otherwise. It’s cowardly and dead-beat behaviour.
But equally; I have no love for mothers who will use money, especially child-maintenance, as the battleground for venting their hurt. The courts will decide the rest.
So I stare at this summons. As I swallow down my offense at the suggestion that I would ever not do the best for my children I find peace in the thought that 1. To the greatest of my ability, I will not let this affect my relationship with my children. 2. Whichever way the wind blows on the date of the court, my children will always know that they have a father who loves them silly, whenever you kiss him his beard will scratch you or tickle your nose and when you reach out for your dummy in your sleep, it’ll magically find its way to your mouth.
I have strong memories of my father being the final word in the house… When I’d done something so heinous in the house that my mother couldn’t met out the appropriate punishment and my father’s firm (significantly stronger) hand was required.
This is the memory of my father. He did the job that even my mother couldn’t handle; kill spiders, rescue his children from scary big dogs, be the final word which couldn’t be questioned or challenged even in the Constitutional Court.
Until Bill Cosby…
Bill Cosby in the Cosby Show (technically Bill Huxtable) undid decades, possibly centuries of work done by fathers in being the word just short of God’s in their homes. He turned us into the buffoon members of the family (in sitcoms.) Thanks to Dr Huxtable, fathers in sitcoms fell right down to the bottom of the family authority scale-ometer… they became those laze-by-the-couch, bond-with-the-last- born (or the dog). Fathers in sitcoms have become the first port of call for the children when they need really frivolous things, but the real emotional stuff, the stuff that changes the world as we know it, goes to mom. And when dad speaks, it is with the permission of the mom…in sitcoms.
In his defence, I understand what he was doing. The Cosby Show is an admission that in reality, homes are run by women. We men are just the oldest child in our own houses. And we need our wives’ permissions to speak to our children about anything more important than which dress to replace when going out ‘cos it really is too short.
And when we men accept our defeat in the home, happily, we get a lifetime of joy and guaranteed expressions of love. ‘Much like a house trained cuddly Rottweiler; all teeth and muscle yet seldom, if ever, a chance to use them. And if we keep our teeth sheathed unless told to do otherwise, we get treats for life.
So, thank you Bill, you’ve redefined our role in the home.
raisingmine 