August 12 – Mom's aside
I believe a child learns to say no to himself (SELF-control) when parents have the courage (courage, because, at the time, it’s easier to give in) to say no. When the “no” is given with wise and fair reasons, it gives him guidelines for himself, although I don’t believe EVERY “no” requires a spoken reason from the parent. When whining and crying and pleading produce a “yes,” then you are only training to whine and cry and plead. In fact, in many, many child/parent situations, stand back and ask yourself, “What am I actually teaching or training my child to do here?” To cry longer and longer till he’s rewarded? To be sneaky? To be manipulative? See what is really happening.
Wow, there are SO many applications for this!
It starts when they’re babies learning to fall asleep… Ferber’s book, “Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems” helped me quite a bit with the balance between rescuing them from the crib versus just making them cry without comfort.
Now, the challenge is rewarding them for telling the truth versus disciplining for what they did wrong.
I’m glad you mentioned the Ferber sleep thing, because I was thinking of the way you two did your training in that area as I wrote that post. Only I didn’t remember where you’d read how to do it. It seemed so kind, but effective.