Saturday, November 19, 2011

Doling out advice

I am just not one that should be doling out advice...I just don't have the answers to this parenting thing. However, recently, my sister has been punishing her daughter by not letting her spend time with D! I just don't think that is proper procedure for disciplining a child.
First of all, it is a total let-down for US...and D..and really, it's just not right to keep cousins from seeing each other.
Today was the second time A has called me up to say, "Sorry, we can't make it out today because H has chosen to be disrespectful all morning even though she knew if she was going to continue to be disrespectful, I was not going to take her out to see D." I, of course, was annoyed and her response was, "Sorry, but seeing D is the only thing that H really cares about so...too bad."
Ummm...okay. Correct me if I'm wrong here but that just does not seem right. It does not seem like it would accomplish much and mind you, H is VERY strong-willed. The girl gets so much "held over her head" that she pretty much doesn't care about anything that much. Candy? Ice cream? Oh, she will look straight at a bowl of ice cream and say she doesn't want it if she thinks you're going to use it as a bargaining piece.
So, knowing your daughter has that kind of personality, wouldn't you try to stray away from holding "seeing her cousin" over her head as reward? Seems a lose-lose situation for everyone.

AND by the way, since I am sitting here analyzing my sister and her parenting habits, my BIL just told me that these days when they ask H to do anything, she bargains. She will say, "Okay, but then I get to do this." As in:

Request: "H, can you go into my office and turn off the light?"
H: "Okay, but if I do it then I get to play my DS for 30 more minutes."

Apparently, she bargains every time they ask her to do anything.

It will be a few years before D gets to that point, but I am starting now to figure out how NOT to have that kind of communication go on in this house.

No comments:

Post a Comment