Code Name: Mama

101 Things To Do Instead of Yelling or Spanking

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

If you have come to a point in a challenging situation with your child where you feel that the only thing left to do is to yell at or strike your child, step away from the child.

Here are 101 things you can do instead of yelling or spanking:

1. Take a parental time-out.
2. Call for help from a friend or family member (ask them to give you an immediate break if possible).
3. Pile everyone in the car and drive to the park (or anywhere – just go for a change of scenery).
4. Sing a silly song about how angry you are.
5. Do jumping jacks.
6. Draw your feelings out.
7. Make yourself your favorite snack.
8. Write down 3 instances when you felt intense love for your child.
9. Clean out your clothes closet and set aside a bag for Goodwill (now would probably not be a good time to do this with the kids’ toys).
10. Change the subject – come back to it when you and your child are calmer.
11. Whisper.
12. Practice progressive relaxation.
13. Act like animals: stomp like an elephant, growl like a lion, etc.
14. Run around the house (or around the block if your children have alternate childcare).
15. Do a load of laundry.
16. Set out clothes for the kids for the next week (or do some other task that will pay off later).
17. Release tension: shake your shoulders, roll your neck, etc.
18. Count to 100. Out loud. In a robot voice.
19. Immerse yourself in an easy craft project.
20. Dust off the hedge clippers and trim your trees or other landscaping.
21. If your child allows it, give him a huge hug and tell him you love him.
22. Scream into a pillow.
23. Bake cookies (with help from your child), bring some to a neighbor or your local fire department.
24. Dance to your favorite song.
25. Instead of yelling at your kids to do something, act out your request in a game of charades or pictionary.
26. Pluck your eyebrows.
27. Clean out the refrigerator.
28. Bang your head – to some loud music.
29. Write down the angry words you could have said, then rip the paper up and throw it away.
30. Do some yoga.
31. Rearrange the furniture.
32. Make a list of the many reasons you love your child.
33. Wash the car by hand.
34. Laugh in as many different ways as you can think of (think Mary Poppins).
35. Take everyone and go sit in a car wash. Choose the option for colored soap.
36. Chocolate.
37. Call a friend who supports gentle discipline (think about finding a “gentle discipline partner” who you can talk to anytime you feel the urge to yell or spank).
38. Fall down theatrically on the floor. Lie there long enough to collect yourself.
39. Pay bills.
40. Keep a roll of tape handy – use it on your mouth.
41. Squeeze a stress ball.
42. Recite multiplication tables.
43. Stand as silent and still as possible.
44. Paint your nails.
45. Do 25 sit-ups.
46. Finish a task you’ve been putting off.
47. Listen to an audio book.
48. Take a bubble bath.
49. Ask a silly question. Ask another.
50. Take a walk around your neighborhood or a park and clean up the trash.
51. Run up and down the stairs.
52. Paint on different mediums (paper, rocks, your windows, etc.).
53. Write a story using only 100 words.
54. Cook a meal for the freezer.
55. Look at pictures of your child when she was a baby.
56. Play Solitaire (or whatever game strikes your fancy).
57. Brew some of your favorite tea or coffee. Have a tea party.
58. Sweep, vacuum, or mop.
59. Learn something new online.
60. Play with Playdough or clay.
61. Put a movie on for the kids; have sex with your partner.
62. Take a shower.
63. Organize meal plans for the next week. Or month. Or year.
64. Set up an obstacle course for you and your kids to do (inside or out).
65. Instead of shouting something angrily, shout “I love you!!”
66. Make up a rhyme about how much you love your child. Recite it while standing on your head.
67. Play ball (basketball, throw a tennis ball against a wall, play catch with someone, etc.).
68. Take artsy pictures.
69. Make a PostSecret postcard.
70. Pull weeds.
71. Decoupage something.
72. Blow bubbles.
73. Make a list of “things I would rather do than engage in power struggles with my child.”
74. Trade roles with your child: pretend you are the little, and she is the adult.
75. Reorganize a closet or cabinet.
76. Roll around on an exercise ball.
77. Make bread or pizza dough (the kind you have to knead).
78. Form a drum circle: everyone grab a drum or a pot, and start playing.
79. Build a tower out of books (or anything handy). Knock it down.
80. Gather the kids for a nature walk around the block.
81. Have a few funny videos saved on YouTube to watch when you need a break.
82. Take silly pictures of yourself. Invite your child to help.
83. Ask your Facebook or Twitter friends to tell you a joke.
84. Scrub the shower.
85. Write a poem (it doesn’t have to be a good one).
86. Send postcards to random people.
87. Make a silly (and unrelated) announcement. (“For the rest of the day, everyone must hop on one foot when moving about the house!”)
88. Make funny faces. Tell your child that no matter what, they must not laugh.
89. Turn on a videocamera. Turn the opportunity into one of love and connection that you can be proud of later.
90. Play an instrument.
91. Take the family to a park with sidewalk chalk: write/draw inspirational messages/pictures.
92. Learn how to say a few words in another language (ASL, Spanish, etc.).
93. Floss.
94. Jump rope.
95. Do something nice for someone else. (Involve your child if he wants to help.)
96. Write your feelings down on paper.
97. Meditate or pray.
98. Hug your child’s teddy bear or doll and talk about how much you love your child (while your child is watching, if you’d like).
99. Look into a mirror and realize what your child is seeing when you are angry.
100. Remember your child is young, and innocent, and loves you, and needs to trust you.
101. Take a minute to calm down and breastfeed your child. (It’s hard to be angry at a child who is nursing, plus the act of breastfeeding releases hormones that will help calm both of you down.)

The bottom line is to not scream at or hit your child. It’s ok to step away from the situation or to defuse a fight by using laughter or love instead of instantly turning to discipline or punishment. If you are trying to “teach” your child something, she will not learn when you are approaching her with anger – whether it is in your voice or in your hand. All she will feel is fear.

Talk about it when both you and your child are calm. Chances are, you will both feel better about the outcome.

What do you do when you need a moment to compose yourself?

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Discipline, Parenting | 86 Comments »

A Corporal Punishment Fallacy

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

There is a “Likey” going around Facebook that says: “I’d rather go to jail for spanking my kids than for them to go because I didn’t.”

Let me clue the clueless in now:

• Eighty percent of prisoners in the United States were abused as children or raised in violent homes.¹

• The more children are spanked, the more anger they report as adults, the more likely they are to spank their own children, the more likely they are to approve of hitting a spouse, and the more marital conflict they experience as adults.²

• Spanking has been associated with higher rates of physical aggression, more substance abuse, and increased risk of crime and violence when used with older children and adolescents.³

• Children who are spanked frequently at age 3 are more likely to be aggressive when they’re 5, even when you account for possible confounding factors. Signs of aggression included behaviors such as arguing or screaming; cruelty, bullying or meanness to others; destroying things; fighting and frequently threatening others. Even minor forms of corporal punishment increase the risk for child aggressive behavior.⁴

• Actions causing pain such as spanking can acquire a positive value rather than the intended adversive value. Children who expect pain may actually seek it through escalating misbehaviors.⁵

• Spanking is no more effective as a long-term strategy than other approaches, and reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use.⁶

Perhaps the Likey should read “I’d rather teach my children there are ways to deal with anger that don’t involve violence, than for my children to be at higher risk of aggression, substance abuse, and a life of crime because I spanked them.”

Photo credit: shadgross

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Discipline, Parenting | 54 Comments »

Discipline or Misdemeanor?

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

If you hit your dog, it’s known as a “misdemeanor.”

If you hit your neighbor, it’s known as either a “misdemeanor” or a “felony.”

If you hit your child, it’s known as “discipline.”

You can’t hit a dog.

Animal cruelty occurs when one strikes or otherwise physically abuses an animal.¹

Possible penalties for a first offense of animal cruelty vary from state to state. Fines can run up to $150,000, and jail sentences can last up to 5 years.²

You can’t hit an adult. In fact, you can’t even act like you’re going to hit an adult.

“Battery is defined as an unlawful touching. The touching need not cause physical injury, thus caressing a stranger’s buttocks is an offensive and unlawful touching. A touching may be of the person’s body or items attached to the body, such as a shoulder bag or necktie. Touching may involve either body-to-body contact or may occur through use of an instrumentality, such as a thrown object or a dog ordered to attack the victim.

Assault is defined as either an attempted battery or placing another in apprehension of an imminent battery.”³ In layman’s terms, that means you can’t even act like you’re going to “unlawfully touch” someone.

Possible penalties for a conviction of assault and battery depend on a number of factors, one of which is whether it is a misdemeanor or felony charge. For example, in Georgia, a person convicted on a misdemeanor charge of simple assault faces up to one year in jail and up to $1000 in fines. If it is classified as a “misdemeanor of high and aggravated nature,” the fines go up to $5,000. A felony aggravated battery conviction in Georgia carries a potential prison sentence of 1-20 years.⁴

But it’s ok to hit your child.

You can’t hit your dog, and you can’t hit your spouse or a stranger on the street, but – by golly – you sure can hit your kid. Many states have laws spelling out how much physical force you can use to “discipline” your child.⁵

In Arizona, “A parent or guardian and a teacher or other person entrusted with the care and supervision of a minor or incompetent person may use reasonable and appropriate physical force upon the minor or incompetent person when and to the extent reasonably necessary and appropriate to maintain discipline.”⁶

In Kentucky, just about anyone can hit your child: “The use of physical force by a defendant upon another person is justifiable when the defendant is a parent, guardian, or other person entrusted with the care and supervision of a minor or an incompetent person or when the defendant is a teacher or other person entrusted with the care and supervision of a minor . . .”⁷

In New Mexico, it isn’t abuse to hurt a child unless the “person knowingly, intentionally or negligently, and without justifiable cause, . . . permit[s] a child to be . . . cruelly punished.”⁸

Apparently, cruel punishment does not include a mother who slapped a tired, sobbing, and overwhelmed 13-month-old baby in the face. Perhaps the mother had “justifiable cause” because her 13-month-old baby had the audacity to kick her during a flight.

Wait – a kick from a baby gives one justifiable cause to slap a baby in the face?

If you haven’t heard, a mother who slapped her crying 13-month-old baby in the face was reported to the New Mexico authorities by a flight attendant. The mother was released after questioning.

Those black eyes on the baby? Those weren’t from abuse. They were from a “dog bite” that happened several days before.

And the fact that the father told authorities that he and the mother had argued several times in the past about the mother’s tendency to hit her baby? That didn’t matter either.⁹

Because it’s still ok for parents to hit their children at the parents’ discretion.

That sounds like cruel punishment to me.

With respect to the airplane incident: Let’s set aside the fact that air travel is stressful for children. Let’s set aside the fact that no toddler can be expected to behave perfectly at all times under the best of circumstances. Let’s set aside the ridiculousness of striking a child as punishment for the child having struck someone else. Let’s look only at the fact that we have:

1) a toddler – practically a baby – who weighs, what? Maybe 22 lbs?¹⁰ and

2) a full grown woman. The average weight of an adult woman in the United States is 162.9 lbs.

How much force could we reasonably expect a 22 lb baby to put behind a kick (much less in the confined space of an airplane seat)?

Enough force to justify the 162 lb adult to slap the baby in the face?

How is that fair? How is that legal? Why does our country continue to justify the abuse of our children?

So, to review:

• I can’t hit my dog when he chews on my favorite pair of shoes – I might go to jail.

• I can’t approach my neighbor with a raised fist after he yells at my child – I might go to jail.

But:

• I can hit my 13 month old baby when she “intentionally” kicks me during my in-flight movie.

• I can hit my toddler for coloring on the living room walls. Never mind that I left the pen within her reach.

• I can hit my preschooler for calling his baby sister a cry baby. Never mind that I scream obscenities at my children whenever they do something that displeases me.

• I can hit my child for interrupting my TV show with a question about homework.

• Basically, I can hit my child whenever I damn well please.

Why should kids have more rights than dogs, anyway?¹¹

Photo credit: Janick Cox

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Discipline, Parenting | 12 Comments »