[HomeWithMyBabies]

I’ve been thinking about the whole “positive intent” thing lately. Some time back I read Crystal’s stuff on the “defiance” issue and I’ve been thinking a lot about that too. Especially after I was talking to my dad about discipline and spanking.

He’s been sharing his thoughts with me and vice versa. He says he’s happy for me that I’ve found other methods to use now besides just spanking, but he is stuck on “defiance.” He told me recently that he thinks at three years old my ds is too young for physical discipline…but that one day when he is older and he misbehaves, he will look at me and I’ll KNOW he’s being defiant, and at that point he hopes I have a plan if I’m determined not to spank (implying that he’s BTDT, and one day I’ll understand that sometimes you just have to use physical punishment). I asked him HOW you know; he said, “You’ll know by the look on his face.”

This was not a good enough argument for me (it would have been a year ago) but my dad left it go and we agreed to disagree.

I’ve been thinking about this for months, and then out of the blue today I remembered visiting my grandparents when I was a kid. My sister was sitting in front of the tv and my grandfather couldn’t see…he told her to move. She didn’t hear him right and turned around and asked, “What?” Apparently “the look on her face” was defiant, and my grandfather slapped her across the face immediately. I’m very vividly remembering her crying and shaking, snot coming out of her nose.

It was a really horrible day that I had totally forgotten, but I won’t forget it now. THAT'S what I'm going to think of when it seems like ds is being defiant. I hate the icky memories that come up but at least I can learn from them.