[Petie]

OK, so here is how I think of it. When Simon was 9 months old he fell and a door with a sharp edge sliced through his head (yes there is a point). OK so off to the ER we go. When we got there, he needed stitches. Well, the Dr. had to use novocaine. It tore me up watching this needle pressed repeatedly into his poor skin and him screaming while trying to nurse him through the process. Poor baby, I felt HORRIBLE for him, but I wasn't willing to pull him away from the Dr. and make the pain stop. WHY? Because, of course, by allowing that pain for a short time, I was able to stop the inevitable pain that he would experience getting that many stitches into his head. So even though it hurt me horribly to watch my child go through the pain of novocaine, I realized that by allowing it, I was preventing the much more painful process of stitches from being painful.


OK, so how does this translate. I put in place logical consequences to cause them a small amount of discomfort (meltdowns etc.) to prevent them from having to experience the natural consequences that are much more painful (sometimes literally). By making myself concentrate on the effects of the natural consequences, I can not only tolerate the big emotions from logical consequences, but I can more accurately judge when to allow them to feel the natural consequences. How does this translate into real life. OK....

So, my child likes to throw his bike into the driveway where dh needs to park. I reminded him daily for a while, and then finally decided to take his bike for a couple of days. Yes, this led to an extreme meltdown. But, it was better than dh now seeing it and accidentally driving over it and destroying it completely. I was shielding my son from the natural consequence (the bike being completely destroyed and losing it for good) by instituting a logical consequence (he couldn't use his bike for a couple days). Now because I instituted a logical consequence, within a couple days he was able to prove that he could remember to put it away. The tears stopped. If I would have allowed the natural consequence to occur, then he would still be crying because we can't afford to just buy him a new bike.

I don't know if that makes sense or even helps, but it is how I think of it to help me deal with the tears and their pain without becoming permissive and too emotionally tied up in their big feelings.