Where There's A Will, There's A Two-Year-Old

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Home » Parenting/Development » Where There's A Will, There's A Two-Year-Old

Where There's A Will, There's A Two-Year-Old

Posted by Jennifer Milner Tuesday, February 16, 2010 0 comments

The discipline system we use at our house
is based on choices and consequences – bad choices lead to
unpopular consequences. And rather than do time outs, with a set
amount of time to be endured, we do breaks – the child goes
on a break that ends when they’ve had a change of heart and
are able to calm down. So a break can last sixty seconds, or sixty
minutes.

Like it did yesterday with Cora.

Cora was in a crabby mood in the morning,
and she halfheartedly hit her sister over some perceived slight. I
told Cora she had to take a break and took her to the living room
couch to sit until she’d calmed down. Cora refused to stay
there, and I warned her that if she wasn’t able to stay in
her break by herself I’d have to put her in her room until
she was calm. One minute later I was carrying a screaming toddler
up the stairs and depositing her in her room. “Cora, you need
to sit down in your chair and calm down, and then you can come back
out.”

“No! I won’t sit in my chair! I don’t WANT
TO!”

She was insistent on testing her boundaries, and I had to put a
childproof lock on her door and shut her in – which I hate to
do, because she takes Mommy leaving very personally. I try to let
her take breaks in a quiet spot where she can see me, or at least
hear me moving around the house. But this was a bad day, and the
door had to be shut until she was obedient.

Every few minutes I’d check in, and she flatly refused to get
in her chair: she’d lean on it, or put one leg up – or
once, even just a toe. Cora was clearly seeing what she could get
away with, and I had to hold fast to the line. Eventually I was
able to leave her door open, but she still wouldn’t sit in
her chair.

For over an hour, my child played Battle of Wills with Mommy. I got
more done in that hour than I have in a long time – laundry
folded and put away, bedroom tidied up, bathroom scrubbed down.
Every once in a while I’d peek in, and Cora was playing
contentedly in her room by herself. “Cora,” I’d
say, “as soon as you sit in your chair calmly you can be
finished with your break and come on out and join the
family!” “No!” she’d say defiantly.
“I’m never sitting in my chair!”

A few times I had to shut the door as the screaming and thrashing
began again, but for the most part she was calmly holding the line.
Right around an hour, I finally heard “Oh, all right,”
on her monitor, and when I went in to investigate she was sitting
in her chair reading books. She looked at me as if to say,
“What?? What’s the big deal?” and I swooped in to
make a big deal out of her final compliance.

Obviously, I don’t have to have her sit in a chair every time
to calm down and take a break. But obedience is crucial at this
age, and once I’d told her sitting in the chair was part of
the deal, I couldn’t renege. I know we haven’t seen the
last of this, but I’m hoping this will happen much more
quickly next time.

Under half an hour would be great.

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About

When I was first pregnant with Madeleine, I’ll admit it: I panicked. As a self-professed organizational freak and someone who’s spent a lifetime scrupulously researching everything before buying something or making any sort of decision, I found myself at a loss as to how to proceed. Where could I go to research how to be a good parent? Where’s the Consumer Reports to fill me in on things like: When are you supposed to use diaper crème and why? What should I look for in a diaper bag? Why are babies supposed to wear hats? And living in New York City added its own problems: What kind of stroller should I get that won’t get beaten up by all the sidewalk miles I’d put on it, yet be maneuverable enough to get through those narrow grocery stores and light enough to carry up and down subway stairs? How do you take a newborn in a cab?

So I formed my own focus group; four girlfriends who had all had children in the past couple of years, who share my attitudes on breastfeeding and thoughtful, deliberate parenting. We sat down one afternoon, and for four hours they patiently answered my eight pages of questions. (I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. Now that I’m a mom, I know what it cost some of them to stay in one place with a squirmy six-month old for four hours. Thanks, Bev.) I walked away feeling not emotionally more prepared to be a mom, perhaps, but at least feeling more prepared to tackle a baby registry. Throughout my pregnancy I read the books they suggested and continued to tap into them with panicked, 3 a.m. emails about thermometers and swaddling blankets.

Once Madeleine came, I naively thought I’d be finished with the focus group, but within days of her birth I found myself tearfully in front of the computer, begging for advice on breastfeeding and uncontrollable crying (both mine and Maddie’s!) They became a “been-there-done-that” shoulder to cry on, a continued resource as Maddie began to need new stuff, and my cheering section as I encountered people who disagreed with my parenting choices. I don’t know what I’d do without my girlfriends; I’m sure I’d figure it out, but I’d be less confident and feel more alone. Which started me thinking about all the women who don’t have their own mommy focus group, their own community. So I thought I’d offer you one.

I'd like you to get two things out of this website: first, I'd like you to use this site as your own personal Mommy Focus Group. I've done the road-testing and researching and polling and have taken the guesswork out of shopping for yourself and your baby. I've actually used everything I recommend here unless I explicitly say otherwise. I'm a picky consumer and (I'd like to think) I've got good taste. If you don't have time to read through my weblogs, the buttons on the side will pull up entries by category or, even faster, go to my Top 5s Page where I'll link you to my favorite picks in a variety of categories.

And second, I'd like you to know that you're a little less alone than you thought.

Who We Are

My husband Brian and I are practicing Christians living in New York City, though we’re both from Texas. Brian works for a religious non-profit and I’m a pilates instructor; he does all the technical work on the website and I do the fun writing stuff. Madeleine was born June 2005, and as parents we believe in breastfeeding and attachment parenting in that we both wear her or hold her a good deal more than our parents’ generation did. We do not sleep in a family bed, but respect every family’s choice as to what works best for them. We’ve seen that it certainly does take a village to raise a child, and our “village” is my mother who lives two blocks away (thank heavens) and our church community, who encourages and supports and simply takes her from our hands when our arms get tired. My girlfriends are largely from my church community.

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Where There's A Will, There's A Two-Year-Old

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