Strength needed

I think we're well into the "terrible twos" with Avalon even though she's still 3 months away from her birthday.

The last few months have been discipline overload.

It's funny how both Craig and I imitate how we were disciplined as children ourselves.

Craig does the "1..2...3 smack" approach which I'm finding myself doing now too. But I prefer not to give much of a chance at all and just tell Avalon firmly "no". She looks at me, smiles and does whatever I've just told her not to do. I prefer this method because I'm a little bit on the dramatic side, and I seem to think that if ever Avalon was in serious danger (like running onto the road) then giving her 3 seconds to obey could be the end of her life. So I give one second, and if I know she's heard me, then the punishment comes.

I tried the "naughty spot" which is pretty useless on her now. She's realising that it's not much of a punishment. So I've resorted to smacks which I never, ever wanted to do. But she's too young to reason with, or to punish by removing favourite toys, etc. So what else do I have left? But today I discovered a new weapon which is quite effective. Now that she has moved out of the cot into the big girls bed, I'm planning to put her in it away from us for punishment. I hope it won't overflow to sleep issues, but to be honest, her night time getting to sleep couldn't be much worse than it is now.

The dog gave me the idea. I remembered that for certain types of dogs (labradors especially) that the worst type of punishment is removal from you. Seeing how Avalon is acting up to get my attention, I hope removing my attention from her will be an effective punishment.

It's incredibly frustrating. I really, really hate punishing her. But, "spare the rod, spoil the child", etc.

Training little people to think differently is really difficult. I'm basically attempting to train sin out of her. Pretty much an impossible task from the get-go. But she does need to learn consequences, and she needs to learn to obey authority. Or how else will she learn to obey the Lord's commands? It's a tedious, mentally challenging and frustrating ordeal. And I'm tired of saying "Avalon. Stop. No!"