For some reason, when our scooter is upside down, it’s a sailboat.

When Skipper Nikki decided that her passenger was creating too much drag to get where she wanted to go, she wasn’t happy. She whined. She made angry sounds. And then she complained to me.

I told her that she needed to talk to Michael about it.

She asked Michael to “get off, please” and he complied immediately. (If he hadn’t, I would have counseled Nikki to wait or think of something else to do.)

This approach of encouraging my children to resolve their disputes prevents me from having to take sides. All I have to do is to encourage, and when necessary enforce, politeness.

It is never too early to learn to articulate our desires in a positive manner, and to be assertive, rather than aggressive or passive.

If you haven’t tried this parenting shortcut already, I highly recommend turning the tables when you’re asked to intervene.

How do you deal with sibling/friend squabbles?

From one thing to another to another to another… being a mother is a very busy job.

A lot of what I do involves responding to requests.

“Mama, can I have a numnum please?”

“Mama, can you open the bathroom door for me please?”

Add in nappy changes, food prep, cleanup, and demand-feeding Vi, and it all adds up.

Nikki is limited to a maximum of three opportunities to breastfeed per day: after breakfast, after lunch, and after nap.

Since I’m not often able to give her a numnum immediately after meals or naps, Nikki has been concerned I will forget her numnum and has started asking many many times. Michael started asking just as many times. And they both got more and more desperate, dissolving into tears on a regular basis, often in less than the time it takes to wash the rice cereal off their bibs after breakfast.

I discouraged whinging by asking Nikki to sit on a stool quietly.

But as soon as she was released from her quiet contemplation, there she was asking again. Quietly. Politely. With a please. But still asking! And then Michael asking too.

Time to try another tactic. I told Nikki that she could ask for a numnum one time. If she asked a second time, there would be no more numnums that day.

It took a couple of days to figure out what asking one time and only one time means. For instance, it does not mean asking, being told your request has been heard and then responding “I’m only going to ask one more time.”

Now that the “asking one time” rule is clear, life is much more peaceful. Nikki asks once for each of her three numnums and accepts that she needs to wait until I have a good chance to nurse her. Michael only asks when he needs a topup (two or three times a day, plus any extra for bumps or overtiredness). Vi is pretty laid back yet makes the most of her opportunities by nursing very efficiently.

Triplex breastfeeding is back to being doable again.

Related post:

Best Breastfeeding Health News of 2009 – by Breastfeeding 1-2-3

When Nikki hit the year-and-a-half mark, it is almost as if she tripped a switch. It was time to find out what happens if she does not do what we say. My first inkling was a couple weeks ago when she was dawdling on her way up the stairs and I was following, holding a mildly fussy Michael. As I made encouraging/prompting comments (‘we’re going up the stairs,’ ‘good climbing!’) to try to speed up the process, she turned around, sat on the stair in front of me, paused, and then raised one eyebrow. Her deliberate actions eloquently said, ‘what will you do about this?’ Just as deliberately, I put my face down close to hers and said quietly, ‘Nikki, I need you to go up the stairs NOW.’ And she did. One confrontation down, who knows how many more to go.

Just yesterday, as she and I were drawing, she pointed her marker uncomfortably close to my face. I told her not to do that. Seconds later, the marker was back. Thinking perhaps she hadn’t understood me the first time, I slowly enunciated my injunction. Hardly an instant went by before the marker was back, along with a sly little smile. So I decided to try a time out. Making it up as I went along, I instructed her to sit in a certain spot on the floor with her face in a corner until I finished counting to ten. On the third attempt at counting to ten she got the point that she wasn’t supposed to be looking around and made it through the count and back to playing.

All of this to underline that I really don’t know what I’m doing! I do know I have to answer and win her direct challenges. Fortunately I had picked up Dobson’s The New Strong-Willed Child after the stair incident. He has a chapter that breaks down disciplinary guidelines by age bracket. Generally, up to age six or ten the four putative methods he outlines are: squeezing the trapezius muscle, time outs, smacking the child’s hand, and spanking (including to enforce a time out, but also for exceptionally defiant behavior). Dobson’s premise, which makes sense to me, is that there would be a lot less child abuse if parents had effective tools to control their children before the situation gets out of hand and the parent erupts. Nikki has had no spankings, one hand smack, and one time out, for me to try them as an alternative to our standby, squeezing the trapezius muscle. For Nikki right now, I think time outs are not immediate enough to generate cause and effect adequately in her mind. By way of contrast, the light hand slap really shocked my little girl and was very immediate and effective.

So my strategy at the moment is to continue to use the trapezius squeeze in routine cases, the hand slap for something a bit more serious (eg dangerous), time outs if I see a pattern developing or to remove her from the scene of the crime, and spankings for open defiance. Duly documented here on the blog so we can see how this is working, revisit the strategy as necessary, and also as a request that any other parents reading this contribute your thoughts, experiences and ideas.

Having gone on about this, it is only fair to say that Nikki is such a joy: sweet to her brother and helpful to me. I respect her systematic tests of my rules. And I feel it is only right to have a good answer when she checks to see if I’m still in charge.

Two new technologies to talk about: one for Nikki and one for her parents.

Nikki technology
Recently Nikki has started pointing at things for us to identify. Favourites include: the chandelier over the dining room table, the ceiling, curtains, light fixtures, cats, and paintings. She’ll point at the same object several times in a row for the joy of hearing us say, “chandelier, chandelier, chandelier.”

Parental technology
The new parental technology is in the disciplinary arena. Nikki has developed a tendency to hit me, Ben, and the cats. Not hard, but it was obviously inappropriate. Restraint only worked until I released her hand – she would immediately begin hitting again. ‘No,’ was not heeded. Thumping her fingers did not seem an appropriate response – hitting her to teach her not to hit? Distraction didn’t work, especially with the cats. I have a friend who shuts the door briefly on her son when he misbehaves, but the layout of our apartment makes that inconvenient for us. Especially at such a young age, I believe the consequence must immediately follow the infraction or else the punishment fails to teach the appropriate lesson.

Enter, Dr James Dobson. I have recently been rereading his book The New Dare to Discipline. This time around, the following paragraph really jumped out at me:

When a parent’s calm request for obedience is ignored by a child, Mom or Dad should have some means of making their youngster want to cooperate. For those who can think of no such device, I will suggest one: it is a muscle lying snugly against the base of the neck. Anatomy books list it as the trapezius muscle, and when firmly squeezed, it sends little messengers to the brain saying, “This hurts: avoid recurrence at all costs.” The pain is only temporary; it can cause no damage. But it is an amazingly effective and practical recourse for parents when their youngster ignores a direct command to move.

I discussed this approach with Ben, and although it does remind us of the Vulcan nerve pinch on Star Trek , we decided to give it a try (after testing its efficacy and safety on Ben). For our precocious little one, the squeeze has been extremely helpful. Nikki listens now when I say ‘no.’ I don’t worry what I will do if she starts hitting me or the cats. The punishment takes only a moment, is immediate, and the pain ends as soon as I let go. Nikki doesn’t seem upset by the muscle squeeze, but she certainly stops what she’s doing and pays attention. In fact, I discipline her less frequently than I did previously. Hurrah!