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[april dreamweaver]

[treestar]

4. What do you do with a kid who just ignores you

I recently had to pick up a niece from school, age 4. Would not come and ignored me, just kept playing.

[Gregorian]

6. Treat them with respect and love.

You can get the child, and leave without humiliating them.

No one said parenting is easy. But most seem to like taking the easy way out. Or worse, taking out their own repressed emotional issues on others in order to feel better.

But you knew all of this.

[treestar]

15. So what do you do/say?

Your answer is very general.

[Gregorian]

24. That's why it takes effort. It takes thought. Creative thinking.

Each instance is different.

I started to explain, but realized that it's not just one post that can do it. If you really want to learn about what to do and not do, read just about any of Alice Miller's books.

I know what is right but I find it very difficult to explain. In a nutshell, until parents work out their own issues, they are going to pass them on to the child. We must break the cycle. It takes work. But once we do raise children who are not full of emotional trauma, then the world gets better.

No one can tell you what you should have done. There are many ways. But love and respect are still the bottom line. As long as that is the context, what you should have done is not really important as you won't do what you shouldn't have done.

[treestar]

19. Not sure what the parents do day to day

They definitely don't spank her. I've seen her put in time out. Or told she can't have something until she stops crying about it. Then she gets it the minute she can be said not to be crying.

I told her it was time to come to the car. I tried walking towards the car, and that eventually worked. Not the first time, when other kids were still there, but when it left her there alone, she did follow to the car, where she started up another confrontation of wills about getting into the car itself. I did firmly take her hand to lead her away and she fell to the ground and twisted and turned - you know how they can do that.

[treestar]

33. Tough for me to carry her

I'm no spring chicken now and she's not small.

Don't remember what she cried about having - usually it is a toy - there's no junk food in the house - give the parents props on that one. It could have been an orange or apple, that's what they snack on.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

9. (1) You have their hearing checked. (2) Be nicer.

[treestar]

20. I'm very nice

I was really nice, just said it's time to go. Why do you assume I was mean? I couldn't have been nicer.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

27. Does your niece perceive it in that way?

[treestar]

35. Yes.

I think it is because I play with her that I got that treatment. She figures I am a pushover. She doesn't do that to others who are more authoritative. I don't have a really authoritative personality so my tone might not have been strong enough and she probably thinks she can get me to stay there and play. We just couldn't stay there forever since it is a school and another class would come.

[enlightenment]

16. Four?

Walk over to them; get their attention. Pick up their book bag/coat/whatever and tell them again that it was time to leave. Encourage them to say goodbye to their friends until the next day; maybe give them the book bag/coat to carry.

If they disagree, pick them up and leave - no yelling, no anger, just calm insistence that is the way the scenario is going to end - with them leaving school.

You think that ignoring you is a reasonable excuse for smacking a little kid? Sad.

[treestar]

23. Did I say that?

I could not smack her, she's not my kid. I am too modern to spank a kid on the butt (that does not seem excessive). That's why I was asking, what do you do?

Everyone says they cannot be spanked now, but I now have experience with a four year old getting her way by use of will. I was stuck there for an hour asking her to come and the only alternative was to let her stay there and play? Should she then be allowed to stay as long as she wants? As long as she is willing to ignore me. I did not yell either, as I didn't feel authorized to do that too.

I have dealt with kids before and never had one be so strong willed, but she was going to stay there no matter what I said. I had to employ pretending I was going to leave. Then she started up another test of wills over getting into the car (parking lot was empty) and then getting herself belted in - I finally just had to belt her in myself, fortunately she was near the seat and I was able to just put her in it and belt her in).

[notadmblnd]

17. you walk over to them take them by the hand and walk them where you want them to be?

then you look them in their little eyes and tell them that when you ask them to come to you, you expect it to be done and if they won't listen then they won't be playing. Then you give them a few minutes alone to think about what they did. When time is up you again discuss the infraction and go over the consequences if the child fails to listen again. Then you let them return to activity.

[treestar]

29. The best answer here

Though I wish I knew that before trying. But really, no kid was ever this way before, each kid is different, and kids I've had to pick up before just came or came in a reasonable time. Though according to your answer, she gets to play as long as she wants so long as she does not come, the adult just has to repeat that there will be consequences? What consequences? She will get to play there again, since it's preschool and she goes three days per week. That I won't play with her when she gets home, at least for a period of time? That's part of my problem - I play with her and she thinks I'm a peer, lol. I'm not the parent but the indulging aunt.

[Brickbat]

18. I hope you came storming out of the car and smacked her. Because yeah, what else could you possibly

do?

[treestar]

25. I was just asking what do you do?

People saying I wanted to smack her are wrong and overly defensive of my question. Some people just can't wait for a chance to jump on someone else in judgment?

Because really, what do you do? I found that the kid ran the show.

[JVS]

22. Grabbing the kid by the arm is ok. It isn't physical punishment.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Agreed

The notion that there is "no other solution" is part and parcel of the laziness.

[pretzel4gore]

26. but i thought 'spare the rod, spoil the child' !

the olden days were strange, now we can look back. They thought the 'Injuns' were the bad guys, they hated feared and exterminated the Wolf (bro to the Injuns) they called Africa the 'dark continent' though even in the 1930's a woman could travel alone, on a bicycle, all the way to the jungle hospice of Albert Schweitzer (who greeted the girl with a 'doctor livingstone,i assume' pun-the nurse was known until her death in the 70's as 'Livingstone' ) and the whale- feared and hated, the tiger exterminated for its pelts, even the poor shark nearly wiped out the earth's oceans! Gorillas were thought of as monsters, and ...let's not even mention race prejudice!
Now you suggest we shouldn't beat the family mule, or punish a child with violence physical?
Next thing someone suggest that war aint good for the economy!

[Gregorian]

2. This is really important for a reason not many people realize.

Parents can beat up their own children, physically or emotionally, and the laws in America look the other way. It's really important because those children grow up to be Bush's or Hitlers.



And yes, I am thinking of Alice Miller.

[JVS]

3. Slapping your kid already casts a dim light on your quality as a parent. But being unable to ...

recognize which child is your own really takes the cake.

[treestar]

30. One time my Dad thought another kid was my brother

It wasn't a discipline thing, but he took him by the shoulder to point out something while on vacation. He was behind the kid, who must have been the same height and same hair color/cut.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

8. The kid that she slapped was sick and waiting for one of his parents to pick him up.

After this woman slapped the sick kid, she did more than just slap her own kid. She "knocked him to the ground."
http://www.wbtw.com/story/21819732/cops-sc-mom-arrested-after-slapping-wrong-child

[shenmue]

10. Oh wow

Get to an anger management class, stat.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

11. After some jail time.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

31. "What will jail do?" 1) It might inhibit her from repeating such behavior. 2) It will take her out

of circulation for a while.