Parenting...

I was over at Owlhavens site and she posted an interesting article on her Ethiopian Adoption Blog. Her post is called Child Training the Shamu Way.

I read the article she mentioned at the NYTimes and I get it!!

We have been dealing with some very difficult issues in our house right now. I am having a very hard time finding a way that would work, to deal with these.

Our main issues are attitude, not listening, attitude, talking back, attitude. Well, attitudes are our biggest right now, and also exclusion. I want my kids to be happy, I want them to enjoy each others company, I want them to see how important their family is...is this too idealistic?

Mr. Hockey has been pretty easy to manage. He is getting older and I am noticing that he has a very passive and quiet way to get his point across. We are working on that with him, but he does pretty good, for an almost 11 year old to pitch in with the house cleaning, on his own, without being asked, I think he does pretty good. He does instigate some things, but him having to spend time alone really works.

Princess is 8 and she has AT-TI-TUDE!!! She is a very emotional child and cannot handle change very well. When she got off the bus from camp she burst into tears, in the car, and said she didn't want to come home, she wanted to stay there. But she just has this way of making any situation, no matter how much fun we are going to have, to be a horrible thing. She also totally excludes her 4 year old sister, not the 1 year old, just the 4 year old. It is so upsetting to see that. I also don't know if this is the pre-puberty "stuff" happening already:-(

Then we have Cutie Pie, who is 4 and acts like she is 4, I guess. But, she has been watching her big sister and I see the changes happening with her now too. I have to nip this all now so we are not dealing with this as they are teenagers.

Lastly is our almost 16 month old, Pooky. She is trying to learn to talk, but resorts to biting and screaming to get anything she wants. We don't tend to give into the screaming, because we know that she understands a lot more then some would say. We are teaching her the signs to ask for what she wants and it works well, most of the time.

So, this is what we are working with, and I know that my girls and I are very much alike, personality wise, which makes this even harder for me!! I am going to try to work on acknowledging the good stuff and just ignoring some of the other stuff. I can't ignore it all, but I have to find something that works.

If anyone has any other suggestions for me they would be greatly appreciated. I just find myself at a loss of what to do.