Day 14: With Affection

 

[at the park]

:: SAYING YOUR CHILD'S NAME UNTIL HE STOPS HEARING IT IS NOT WORKING!

Today's pearl comes from Aunty Leila over at the wonderful blog Like Mother, Like Daughter on her post "Don't Wear Your Child's Name Out". I'm not Catholic or religious, but I have a couple of Catholic bloggers in my reader, and I love them. I'm in awe of people that have large families, I read to see how they cope I think. Even though the spanking part of the advice is not for me, I love Aunty Leila's tone in all her writing and find her so encouraging. This post in particular has some lovely advice about over using your child's name and suggests that it only be used to either a) stop your little one running into traffic, or b) with great affection. I find myself saying Charlie's name in annoyance or disappointment a lot. I know it is not lost on him, and I wonder what damage I am doing. I know I can't be perfect, but using Charlie's name like that does nothing to strengthen our bond and surely pushes him further away from "model behavior". Another thing to stop doing! As well as saying your child's name over and over waiting for him to stop doing whatever it is you want him to stop doing. As today's pearl says, it doesn't work!

The sentiment behind today's pearl is more a call against passive parenting, and that is something I can get behind. Janet Lansbury explains the difference between respectful parenting and passive parenting here, and even though there is no advocacy for spanking I think they are really saying the same thing.

Today: An early incident while getting Charlie dressed so we could meet friends at Kings Park. He kicked me in the side of the face while he was laying on the bed and I was trying to get pants on him. A quick slap on the leg in return before I'd even thought about it. Then he accidentally smashed me across the bridge of my nose with his head. At three years of age I suppose it is probably about time he started learning to dress himself. The rest of the day was fine, we were out all day, and Charlie even behaved wonderfully for a couple of hours at Ikea. I was going to leave him at the play center there but they were at maximum capacity. I didn't mind, I don't know if I'm ready to leave him with strangers!

It's my birthday tomorrow, I remember when we were young and asking Mum every year what she wanted for her birthday, she would always answer "nothing, just peace and quiet". Do you think if I explained that to Charlie it would work? No, me either! Hopefully I'll at least get to sleep in past 6 am :)

Mx