Not exactly the same situation, but this reminded me of a post on Irony Central (http://www.ironycentral.com), which contains a series of articles by a guy I used to know, who writes about the trials and tribulations of raising his toddler-age daughter. In this particular post (the one dated December 9, 2004 if you want to read the whole thing), he talks about how he tried to take her to a barbecue place but was forced to leave when she had a tantrum. (I forwarded this to a coworker who has a 2-year-old and he shared it with his wife, who quoted the last paragraph below with a big "AMEN!")
So, you might think, why don’t I punish her? Why can't I control my child? Well, she's two. It's hard to punish someone who's two. Her brain isn't quite capable of grasping the subtleties of a time-out. I can't take anything she likes away to punish her, because she doesn't really like anything but lying down and screaming. And I can't hit her, for three reasons:
i. Beating on a two year old is really kind of mean. ii. If my main goal is getting the people in the BBQ place to not think I'm a terrible parent, beating on a two year old is probably not the best route. iii. I'm trying to get her to quiet down. You can't hit someone quiet. Well, OK. You can hit someone quiet, but that's taking things way too far.
You might also be thinking, "Well, why don't you reason with the child? Explain to her what she is doing wrong, in a calm, ration[sic] voice." If this is what you're thinking, I would love to visit your planet. I bet it's lovely there.
So the only solution: become a shut-in. Give up. Wait until her psyche develops enough that I can shame, coerce, and extort her into behaving in a way that doesn't embarrass me.
And, in the meantime, I'm taking her to spend lots of time playing with this other two year old we know. One who is in a real hitting phase, and goes after Cordelia all the time. The way I figure out, it is immoral for me to hit Cordelia, but nothing is preventing me from outsourcing the job to another toddler.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-01-27 05:49 pm (UTC)So, you might think, why don’t I punish her? Why can't I control my child? Well, she's two. It's hard to punish someone who's two. Her brain isn't quite capable of grasping the subtleties of a time-out. I can't take anything she likes away to punish her, because she doesn't really like anything but lying down and screaming. And I can't hit her, for three reasons:
i. Beating on a two year old is really kind of mean.
ii. If my main goal is getting the people in the BBQ place to not think I'm a terrible parent, beating on a two year old is probably not the best route.
iii. I'm trying to get her to quiet down. You can't hit someone quiet. Well, OK. You can hit someone quiet, but that's taking things way too far.
You might also be thinking, "Well, why don't you reason with the child? Explain to her what she is doing wrong, in a calm, ration[sic] voice." If this is what you're thinking, I would love to visit your planet. I bet it's lovely there.
So the only solution: become a shut-in. Give up. Wait until her psyche develops enough that I can shame, coerce, and extort her into behaving in a way that doesn't embarrass me.
And, in the meantime, I'm taking her to spend lots of time playing with this other two year old we know. One who is in a real hitting phase, and goes after Cordelia all the time. The way I figure out, it is immoral for me to hit Cordelia, but nothing is preventing me from outsourcing the job to another toddler.