Worrying About Punishment
Now that Eli is old enough to know that he’s doing things he shouldn’t do, we’re starting to wrestle with how to punish him and how to redirect his behavior. It’s something of a nervous tightrope act, only your hair is on fire at the time and the audience is throwing knives at you.
Sharp knives.
We’re very unsure about what we’re doing. We don’t want to crush his spirit any more than necessary, but he can’t run around like a wild hooligan. We don’t want to be those parents. I mean, we are those parents — every parent is one of those parents. It’s unavoidable, like gravity and getting peed on at least once when changing a diaper. But we want to minimize the length of time we spend being those parents.
I’m sure we’ll have this figured out in a day or so. I’ll let you know when we do.
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Comment by veek
That’s an adorable pic.
Posted on January 5, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Comment by paulobrian
Yeah, please do, and when you get it figured out, could you post it here in detail? I’d like to use it as my instruction manual 18 months from now.
Posted on January 5, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Comment by pirateginny
Good luck! We seem to figure it out, then forget everything. Argh. (Our Em is not quite to the naughty-on-purpose state, but I sometimes feel like…:points to icon:)
Posted on January 6, 2006 at 3:38 am
Comment by duchez
We may borrow that manual from you, too.
Posted on January 6, 2006 at 8:17 am
Comment by sargentjr
Thanks! That’s what he looks like a lot of the time, with the talking and everything.
Posted on January 6, 2006 at 9:28 am