Just a short little update about AM’s punishment. It has been over now for a week. She has been able to use everything she did not have access to for a while due to her bullying. I am happy to say that the grounding seemed to work!! Not only has she stopped hitting, but she has stopped yelling, and her whole personality seems to have changed for the better. She plays with her brothers rather than at them, if that makes sense. She allows them to make the rules sometimes (although she still may alter them a bit), and she does not yell like she’s in pain every time something doesn’t go her way! I am thoroughly pleased!!

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It is interesting that I am writing about a movie experience including AM, since she can’t watch them right now, but evidently she remembered something from a movie she watched a while back.
I just caught AM shaking her fist in front of P’s face out of frustration at him. I told her not to ever do it again and that shaking her fist in someone’s face is part of being a bully. Then I asked her if anybody had ever shaken their fist at her, wondering where she learned it. She said “no,” so I asked her where she had seen it. She said she had seen a “bad guy” doing it on a movie. I started to tell her that she didn’t need to watch movies like that b/c they taught her bad stuff. But instead, I said, “You saw a bad guy do it, right?” She nodded. I asked her if she wanted to be like a bad guy, and she said no. I told her that if she doesn’t want to be like a bad guy, she doesn’t need to do things she sees bad guys do. I think that impacted her more than anything else I could have done. I actually thought to do something that would teach her to discern right from wrong instead of protecting her to keep her from wrong! Of course, we will still monitor what she watches b/c there are some things 5 year olds do not need to see or hear! (and some times good guys do things they shouldn’t). More later, I’m sure!! 🙂

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AM is in the midst of her first grounding. She has been fast becoming a bully, and we have been very unsuccessful in getting her to stop hitting, pushing, yelling, and other things that go under the bully category. We decided to make her go a week without TV (which she watches very little of anyway) to remind her not to hit or push others. Yet she kept hitting and pushing, so we extended the restriction to no TV and no computer priveleges (which is what she had been doing when the boys watched a movie). That did not seem to be enough, so we took away toys. That sounds harsh upon first hearing it, but if you think about it, we took away the things that children in the past didn’t have access to anyway.

Anna is really beginning to use her imagination more and is able to keep herself entertained without toys, computer, or TV! It is interesting that we only disciplined her for hitting and pushing, yet her tone and whole manner is more kind (most of the time) than it was before. She is also more willing to help around the house, probably to fight off boredom. I think she is really learning from this. Hopefully it will stick when she finally gets those priveleges back. In a way, I can’t wait until she has access to them again.

Honestly, it is almost as hard on me to stick with the discipline as it is for her, but she and I are both learning so much that, deep down, I am glad this is happening. It makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be good for every child to have to take a brief time off from modern entertainment just to learn some of the lessons that AM is being forced to learn (hopefully). I will probably post more on this topic as it is a big part of every day.

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We came up with a fun game. We call it hide the snake. We hid a long stuffed snake of P’s. It is neat to hide the snake because it can be rolled up and put in a small place or stretched out and placed across a curtain rod or on a ceiling fan. The snake had to be hidden in a place where it could be seen without moving anything. AM and P did pretty good at hiding it, but Ph would hide it and then show everybody where it was. I tried to arrange it so that P found it when Ph hid it b/c AM could find the harder ones. Ph actually found it several times! He was so excited when he did! When I hid it, I tried to take turns with the heights and where I put it, so that whoever had not found it in a while had a better chance of finding it! Of course, sometimes I had to make it more difficult (for my sake) by hiding it so that only a small part of it could be seen! If they had difficulty finding it, I would tell who was the closest or whether they had to look behind something. This game kept them entertained for about an hour!!

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