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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Is Silence Always Golden?

Being a grandparent myself, I know how difficult it is, NOT to interfere with the way our kids raise their own. Some rules may seem either pointless, or even ridiculous to me. Our children however, may have a very good reason for setting those rules.

I usually ask the 'Why' question and after explanation, consider whether the rule would be helpful or hurtful. In the first case, I will ensure to stick to the rule they have set for our grand babies. In the second case...., I speak my mind, voice my concerns and come up with another solution for them to consider.

Let me give you an example here:
When lil' Kc was more then a year old, he started getting in to stuff. Our daughter had set the rule, that after three warnings and grandson's behavior was still continuing, he would get a spanking.

I hate spanking. In my humble opinion, it solves nothing and eventually, the kids get used to it and do what they want anyway. They may grow up, thinking that violence is the solution to everything. When you resort to spanking, you already lost the war of the wills and it is a display of desperation and total frustration.

The child has to understand, that it's behavior is unacceptable and the best way to do that, is to isolate it, take it out of the group. A time-out, as we call it. Both Opa and I told our daughter to try a time-out. She did. She took him out of the living-room and set him down in the hall.

He came, out still crying and without saying a word, she got up and put him right back. He threw a fit, screamed, cried and yelled and tried to come out several times. With patience, each time he got put back in his place. Yeah, it is heartbreaking. :-)

Eventually, he got quiet and we told our daughter to wait about 10 seconds, then get up and praise that behavior. When she did, his demeanor changed a 180 degrees. He was happy, loving and obedient.

Now, when he does something and we send him in time-out, he may cry a little, goes in the hall by himself, sits down and is quiet. All together, it does not take but a couple of minutes: "Kc? All done?" He gets up with a smile and comes running, to get a hug.

What if we had not said anything? What if we had kept our mouths shut and let our daughter do, what she had decided, was the best route to go? There is wisdom in the counsel of many. If we keep that wisdom to ourselves, silence is no longer golden. It is devastation.

There are lots of different opinions on this, some of which you can read here. I sure would like to hear yours. :-)

2 Comments:

Blogger audrey` said...

The power of love does wonders =) We need to discipline them when they misbehave (((HUGS)))

22/3/09 1:52 AM  
Blogger Corry said...

Audrey,
I totally agree with you.
There are many ways to discipline though and it is not always easy to find the right one. :-)

God's Grace.

22/3/09 5:07 AM  

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