Gentle Christian Mothers Community - View Single Post - It Was One of Those Days Toddler Addition

ValiantJoy07 · 07-20-2017, 04:32 PM

It was one of those days that I am so thankful we chose Gentle Discipline.

Our youngest is 22 months old, he is bright and sweet and quite curious, he loves to copy everything we do which to his almost-2 perceptions misses the mark and equals big messes.

We have family visiting, family that was not gentle and it occurred to me that they likely would have hit DS several times today for being "bad".

Ds woke up over an hour earlier than usual this morning, took a short nap and by 4:30 was just a melting mess. He wanted to go to bed (but dh and i didn't want to be up until midnight with him) we took turns dealing with shrieking and miserable baby while we also got dinner together. DS got into quite a bit of trouble in that time, he got a hold of a water cup someone left in his reach and dumped it on a book (in a blink, we aren't even sure how he did it so fast) and was spreading the water through the pages in fascination.

He did a few other things after dh told him no/redirected him (not his norm, he is very easygoing generally) but the combination of less sleep, lots of strange (ish) people in the house, busy Mama (cooking for all the people, and our dishwasher broke so I've been cooking and washing up after 9 people without much help) it has been a rough week and a rough day.

As he melted down over the 15th thing that hour it occurred to me that he would have gotten several swats already if we were doing things the old way.

his toddlerhood would be full of swats. Today we saw his behavior as developmentally appropriate with a lot of unfortunate situations exacerbating everything. We didn't let him run wild without guidance, we redirected and dealt with him where he was at. Gentle hands hugging him because we knew he was tired, eyes seeing someone having a hard time.

It was just eye opening. Gentle Discipline is not something we were raised with, we are far from perfect, but when i think how often our kids would be hit (especially one of our kids who is very spirited) how much closer/attuned to needs we are to our kids because of GD. It is good stuff. I may not be doing everything right, but i feel so good about our decision to use gentle hands (and the fact that the thought of hitting a toddler is appalling)

07-20-2017, 04:32 PM	#1
ValiantJoy07 Rose Garden "Take Joy Home, And make a place in thy great heart for her...Joy is the grace we say to God." ~Jean Ingelow~ Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: The Forest Posts: 16,337	It Was One of Those Days Toddler Addition It was one of those days that I am so thankful we chose Gentle Discipline. Our youngest is 22 months old, he is bright and sweet and quite curious, he loves to copy everything we do which to his almost-2 perceptions misses the mark and equals big messes. We have family visiting, family that was not gentle and it occurred to me that they likely would have hit DS several times today for being "bad". Ds woke up over an hour earlier than usual this morning, took a short nap and by 4:30 was just a melting mess. He wanted to go to bed (but dh and i didn't want to be up until midnight with him) we took turns dealing with shrieking and miserable baby while we also got dinner together. DS got into quite a bit of trouble in that time, he got a hold of a water cup someone left in his reach and dumped it on a book (in a blink, we aren't even sure how he did it so fast) and was spreading the water through the pages in fascination. He did a few other things after dh told him no/redirected him (not his norm, he is very easygoing generally) but the combination of less sleep, lots of strange (ish) people in the house, busy Mama (cooking for all the people, and our dishwasher broke so I've been cooking and washing up after 9 people without much help) it has been a rough week and a rough day. As he melted down over the 15th thing that hour it occurred to me that he would have gotten several swats already if we were doing things the old way. his toddlerhood would be full of swats. Today we saw his behavior as developmentally appropriate with a lot of unfortunate situations exacerbating everything. We didn't let him run wild without guidance, we redirected and dealt with him where he was at. Gentle hands hugging him because we knew he was tired, eyes seeing someone having a hard time. It was just eye opening. Gentle Discipline is not something we were raised with, we are far from perfect, but when i think how often our kids would be hit (especially one of our kids who is very spirited) how much closer/attuned to needs we are to our kids because of GD. It is good stuff. I may not be doing everything right, but i feel so good about our decision to use gentle hands (and the fact that the thought of hitting a toddler is appalling) __________________ Hannah Joy Intuitive People Loving Introvert Married since '05 to Ryan software and web applications developer. Homeschooling Mama to my 5 Joys... dd1 RJ (12/07), dd2 AJ (08/09), dd3 PJ (01/12), ds1 Ziggy (09/15), ds2 Sunny (05/18) Enjoying a Healing Diet to manage SPD and other health challenges. Sorry for the typos and sloppy grammar I don't have a good excuse anymore.

X vBulletin 3.8.3 Debug Information
Page Generation 0.04787 seconds Memory Usage 6,989KB Queries Executed 14 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD_SHOWPOST (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)cyb_flashimagebanners (1)footer (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (19)option (1)post_groan_box (1)post_groan_javascript (1)post_groan_navbar_search (1)post_thanks_box (13)post_thanks_box_bit (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (1)post_thanks_postbit_legacy (1)postbit_legacy (1)postbit_onlinestatus (11)postbit_reputation (1)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open Phrase Groups Available: global postbit reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showpost.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/functions_notice.php ./mobiquo/smartbanner.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php ./includes/functions_post_groan.php ./includes/functions_misc.php Hooks Called: init_startup cache_permissions fetch_postinfo_query fetch_postinfo fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates fetch_musername notices_check_start global_setup_complete showpost_start bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create postbit_factory showpost_post postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_bit_start post_thanks_function_show_thanks_date_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_bit_end post_thanks_function_fetch_post_thanks_template_start post_thanks_function_fetch_post_thanks_template_end post_groan_function_post_groan_off_start post_groan_function_post_groan_off_end post_groan_function_fetch_groans_start post_groan_function_fetch_groans_end post_groan_function_groaned_already_start post_groan_function_groaned_already_end reputation_image bbcode_parse_start postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete error_fetch showpost_complete
Messages: