Discipline and Punishment

August 27, 2008 at 8:28 am · Comments (6)
Wordcount: 270

A friend of mine and I were discussing children’s behavior earlier. That led to the topic of discipline and what forms of punishment were okay and not okay. It got me to thinking about it a little bit. I know alot of people don’t believe in spanking their children. I am definitely not one of those people. That is not to say that I spank my son all the time, but I have on occasion. I don’t like doing it, and I would rather not have to, but I feel sometimes there is no alternative when his behavior gets out of control. I don’t want to send the message that it’s alright to hit, however. I think in his 8 years I have probably only spanked him 5 or 6 times. I don’t think that’s over doing it in the least.

Another thing we talked about was the soap in the mouth thing. She said that putting soap in your child’s mouth is kind of poisoning them. I wonder about that, because I have put soap in my son’s mouth, once or twice. But basically what I did was rub a little bit of dish soap on my finger and then rubbed it on his tounge. He didn’t like it much and I haven’t had to do that in years.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I wonder what other forms of punishment would actually work. Time out is okay to a certain age, and taking away things they like has also worked in the past, but I’m wondering what alternatives to spanking to other parents use?

Commenters: Aimey, feefifoto, Julie, nmay

Hurricane Gustav

August 26, 2008 at 3:00 pm · Comments (2)
Wordcount: 271

My parents are kind of worried about that hurricane Gustav because they live near the coast and they live in a trailer. Well, I’m a little worried because it’s supposed to be category 5 if and when it hits us, but I’m not sure I want to evacuate again. A couple of years ago we had a big hurricane scare, and it was mostly because of what happened when Hurricane Katrina struck. I remember packing up my most prized possessions and important papers and my son and I set off on a horrible, 24 hour drive. I drove for 24 hours straight just to get to Oklahoma. This drive normally would have taken all of 6-7 hours tops, but with everyone in our city evacuating it took ages. The traffic was so bad, and moving so slowly that people were literally pushing their cars along to save gas. I’m not kidding. It was a mess. It turned out that the hurricane died out a bit and we barely even got rain here. My mom says “better safe than sorry, though.” I guess she’s right, I’d send my kiddo with my parents if they decide to leave town, but I’m more than likely going to stick it out. I’ll know more by the end of the week. The hurricane could lose force by then, which is what I’m hoping for, but all of the weather reporters say that it’s not likely.

This is a picture of what it was like evacuating because of hurricane Rita. Notice that even the cars in the southbound lane are actually heading north? It was pretty ugly.

Commenters: Julie, Mary

The First Day…

August 25, 2008 at 4:28 pm · Comments (2)
Wordcount: 263

This morning was kind of a hassle. The first day of school… It started off decent enough, I woke up on time and got Eric up. He got dressed while I made him some breakfast, then he ate, brushed his teeth and was basically ready to go. So, I drive him to the bus stop cause he wanted to ride the bus this morning. We waited… and waited. The bus never came. I don’t know why. There were several others waiting to, so I thought screw this I’ll just drive him. Well, that’s all well and good except I didn’t realize I was so low on fuel. I mean I had enough to drive him to school but almost not enough to wait in line for 40 minutes just to drop him off! He was almost late on his first day because everyone and I do mean everyone was dropping off their kids. It was crazy and I was worrying about running out of gas the whole time, too. Luckily though we got up there with 7 minutes to spare before the tardy bell rings. He is a “big boy” now so he isn’t into the whole mommy walking him into his class type of thing. He walked in on his own and I attempted to manuever my way out of this big fat traffic jam that was the first day of school.

Anyways I was able to get a picture of him right before we walked out the door. He wasn’t happy about his picture being taken so early in the morning though.

Commenters: Aimey, Julie