Help! What's the Natural Consequence for this....

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February 09, 2012, 12:39:09 PM

babies, babies everywhere!!! no news today.

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Latest Member: knodiaunloari

Emily has started biting Jessie when she fights w/ Jessie over something...usually when Jessie tries to push her to do something she doesn't want to do. She normally doesn't bite or try to bite...just when Jessie aggravates her a lot and won't stop. Now, obviously, I'm trying to deal w/ Jessie's side of things to get her to stop pulling/pushing/aggravating Emily...before the point where Emily gets ticked enough to bite. But, in the mean time, I need to teach Emily that biting is NOT an acceptable way of dealing w/ her frustration or "defending" herself. But, in order to teach this, I feel like I need to find a "natural consequence" that is negative for Emily. I've tried time out, but it doesn't work.

Putting her in time out doesn't do the trick b/c
a. she WANTS to get out of the situation...it kind of is giving her a positive reinforcement that if she bites, I'll come "rescue" her out of the situation
b. she doesn't need the time to call down...as soon as Jessie's out of her face, she's happy again
c. she doesn't care IF she is alone and not playing w/ Jessie...she actually seems to like it...so by it not being a "negative consequence", she hasn't learned that biting is wrong.

Any suggestions? I'm stumped on this one.

Ok, the Positive Discipline book would say that you have to get to the root of the problem and address that. She's biting b/c Jessie is up in her face and biting is a very effective way to get Jessie off her. You're going to have to let her know that you understand why she's doing it ("you don't like it when Jessie gets bossy. You get scared/mad/frustrated and you want Jessie to stop NOW") and give her some sympathy for that. It's not fair that our little ones get pushed around by their big siblings, and it must be hard to be in that situation every day. (Can you guess that we have this sort of issue with Nigel and Calvin?)

Then you have to let her know that biting is not ok for getting Jessie to stop. Maybe Jessie could also participate, since Emily is so young, in finding a way that would get Emily's point across. Does Emily have enough words to yell "No!" or "Stop!" or "Mommy!" when Jessie overwhelms her like that? Could you ask Jessie if Emily was showing her in other ways that she didn't like what was happening, before she got so fed up that she bit? And help Jessie remember that if she doesn't listen to Emily's words/yells/mad noises then there's a good chance Emily's going to bite her?

Sorry, I know it's not a quick fix. But what I'm learning with sibling stuff is that I have to get them listening to each other or I'm going to end up refereeing for the rest of my life. I can guide them through conflicts, but the fact of the matter is that Jessie needs to listen so she doesn't get bitten, and Emily needs to learn a better way of communicating. I don't think you can treat the biting yourself without replacing it with something socially acceptable, and Emily's only going to learn something new if it works to get the result she needs. I think it has to be a group thing, not Mommy being in charge of each of them seperately.

Hope that makes sense, and helps,
Jen

Thanks, Jen. It's nice to get help from someone who is going thru this too. The girls just really started fighting about a month ago. Before this, it was mostly cooperative play b/c Emily was willing to do whatever Jessie wanted AND Jessie was less bossy. But, Jessie has started being more bossy at the same time Emily started having a stronger opinion of what she did/didn't want to do. Sigh!

Anyway, yes, Emily is very vocal so she'll tell me exactly what happened...but not UNTIL after she's already bitten. I think you're right that the goal is to get her to find a way to vocalize she doesn't want to do something to Jessie and at the same time to get Jessie to learn to listen to these cues and to back off.

Some great points there Jen. I'll have to use those. We kind of do but its not like we have those problems exactly yet.

Hope -
I think that Jen's advice is really great - you have to get to the root of the biting and get Emily to be able to tell Jessie to back off but in the mean time:

I don't think that removing her from the situation is necessarily a bad idea at the moment. Yes, she is happy because she wanted Jessie out of her face but she could also be removed from whatever she was doing at the time which would be a bit more of a 'consequence'. Actually, they could both be removed to a separate area for a bit and told something about "I understand you are both mad but fighting is not appropriate so you can both go sit and look at books for 3 minutes". If nothing else, it gives both of them a cooling off period before they start into something else.

Well, we have the opposite situation. My boys have fought all this time, pretty much since Nigel was big enough to actively annoy Calvin which resulted in Calvin taking out his superior size on my baby! It's only in the last couple of months that they're really starting to play together and enjoy each other.

What I've had to do in order to get them solving their own problems is to lurk. If I hear what I think is some frustration I'll peek in on them, and if I see one doing something the other doesn't like I'll say something like "Hey Nigel, if you don't like that you can just say 'Calvin, stop pushing me'". Or if I'm really on top of things I get there early enough to say "Calvin, if Nigel's trying to knock your block tower down, remember to use your words and tell him to make his own". Then Calvin would use his words and, lo and behold, Nigel would actually listen!! Now they've cut out the MiddleMom and actually talk to each other, so my job is more about making sure that the words are being heard and respected, which is its own little slice of hell.

I know I go on and on about it, but our household has changed so much since I read Positive Discipline for Preschoolers and started putting it into practice. I don't stress about things nearly as much, because I've realized what's mine to handle and what are Calvin's and Nigel's responsibilities. I'm still working on it, of course, but this is the way I want to do things from now on. Tonight Calvin was being a pain and he put all the bathtowels into the tub, with water still in there. Our previous response would have been to count him for doing that (since we told him not to) and in the process of getting him to clean it up he probably would have ended up with a timeout. Tonight I said "you crazy kid, that's not where we do our laundry! Daddy, get this boy a laundry basket so he can put those towels in the washing machine!" Calvin hauled the heavy, wet towels into the basket, pushed the basket to the laundry room, scooted a chair over to the washer, put the towels in, added detergent with Daddy's help, and shut the lid. He cleaned up his mess and nobody even had to get mad. I have a feeling he won't be putting them in the tub again, either.

Jen

Jen --- LOVE IT! That's a great natural consequence.

I get so mad when people tell me that Jocelyn is going to be 'spoiled' b/c we don't spank or use TO. We use kind of a time in when she is going too far in bothering the animals but that's it. She knows that tossing water out of the tub on purpuse ends the bath, spilling her milk on purpose means she has to help clean-up and use a sippy for a little while....um, how much do you guys hate me that those are the only things I can think of that she does to get into 'trouble'.

What is the natural consequense for constant whining and wanting to be held/nurse? Delaney has been an emotional mess lately and it is driving me crazy. lol
Besides that the kid is very reasonable when it comes to natural consequenses. I guess at this point the only thing we actually do that is disipline is putting her in her bed when sge is having a crying meltdown and telling her to come out when she is done. Sometimes she stops crying right away and sometimes she is in there for five minutes crying. Then she is usually able to come tell us why she was crying and we can figure it out from there. This has been happening a lot lately. Tongue

As for Josie. I am not that[b][/b] jealous. You never know....She may be one of those teenagers that goes wild. lol wild

I hear you Shannon, Charlies whinging crying drives us crazy, you try communicating to get to the issue and they just cry more, its very frustrating. even more frustrating when it wakes another baby in the house.