Richelle, if Sophie's fine with all the racket - no need to change it! :lol: Sounds fun! Things get pretty crazy and noisy here with me and Nathan playing around too and D joins in the fun.
We also don't have a wind-down routine - I just notice the time, Danielle also starting to look a bit tired so I take her down to her room, change nappy, close curtains, tell her it's time for nigh-nighs, put her in the cot and leave.
Judy, right. OK looking at this objectively and not necessarily how I would see it, so coming from a UP perspective, I guess I would question this:
Ok so I pick up Zoe's which is on the table and give a bite to Sarah - fair enough right?
To me that was done as a pay-back (and too right :wink: ) which to me also translates to punishment for Zoe for snatching.
Well Zoe get's mad and SPITS OUT the bite she took onto the carpet
We get a similar response of his snack plate being tossed if it's got something undesirable on it after HE demanded/agreed to have me put something on there. i wonder if it's like they've made the chase but didn't really want it, it was the feelings of getting the thing rather than achieving it...not sure if I'm making sense there.
I told her she needed to clean up every last bit before I gave her the remaining part of her bar. She's lying on the floor claiming to be too hungry to clean it up.
Yep, I know that battle of wills...I do find if I ask Nathan to clean something up, and he refuses, so I go to clean it up he gets really snotty at me and then cleans it up anyway. Almost like he hasn't got the rise out of me that he wanted. That's obviously no help to you though, cause I know you often take this way anyway.
Were both girls agreeable to the flavour bar they had to start with? Maybe encourage them to think about a trade before they start eating and if there's any fighting then they need to sort it out (I know Sarah tried to head off Zoe snatching it, but what would happen say if you werent' there when it happened and say were bathing the twins and couldn't go out and referee?)
I've read a thread on another board the other day about Sibling Rivalry (where I also got the article for Deb) which talked about a book called "Mom, Jason's breathing on me" - apparently it takes a whole difference stance and basically says to let kids work it out for themselves if there is no bodily harm going to happen or that one child isn't always at an unfair disadvantage. The aim being that they will learn to compromise, problem solve on their own without thinking that one or other of them is needing you to referee which therefore gets interpreted as you taking sides, even if you've worked hard at not letting that happen. So in this instance mum would've probably ignored the situation, ask them to both stop fighting and to try and figure out a solution to the problem: the outcome would have been Zoe offering a piece of bar to Sarah even if it was done in a huff (yes the snatching would have still happened, Sarah would have got upset etc). I haven't read the book and we don't have it here, I found it another interesting take. Then you would talk to both girls later separately and let them know that you're on their side and how the issue could have been resolved.
I don't know how I would have dealt with it differently in the place that I'm at with just coming to terms with philosophy. :? I just know that the outcome would have been the same.
Judy, do you find it difficult to read the Discipline forum lately now that you follow UP? I just find unless someone understands and wants to come from a UP POV, it would be hard to give advise.
