Tag Archive for 'spanking'

Happy Mother’s Day!

To all the mother’s out there, today is your day! To wit, I’d like to share a story from this weekend with you about our own precious daughter and how she sees her own mom. Before reading any further I must warn you that this tale involves children and spanking so if you are one of those crazy non-spanking or anti-spanking nutjobs you might as well stop reading here. For everyone else, read on.

Layla has been in a bit of a terrible twos mode recently. She’s become a lot more independent now, proud of the fact that she can pee in a toilet and zip her own jacket. As such, she’s starting to think she doesn’t need to listen to her parents and has been starting to act out, albeit politely. Instead of saying “No!” outright when I tell her to do something, she tells me “No, thank you!” with as sweet a smile as only a daughter can smile. My heart melts at the sight, but luckily it’s not my heart that disciplines the poor kid… it’s my hand. On her bottom.

The other night we were all together — me, Tamie and the little monster, having a nice time as a family when said monster decided that she wasn’t going to listen to us and do her own thing. When threats and yelling didn’t work to correct her misbehaviour, I picked her up and swatted her on the butt. It wasn’t the first time she was spanked, and I guarantee it won’t be the last, but this time the funniest thing happened. She burst into tears (as usual), but this time she told me that she wanted her Mom to spank her instead of me… keep in mind, this was after the butt-swat already occurred! The poor kid was adamant – she cried so hard and wouldn’t stop until Tamie actually swatted her on the rear end too! It was all I could do to just to keep a straight face.

So with that in mind, I reiterate — Happy Mother’s Day, to all the Mom’s out there. Your jobs are tough — thanks for handling the dirty work.

(I’ll leave it to Kevin to add a spanking/”Who’s your Daddy” joke in the comments =)

Discipline, Tamie-Style

Layla is a good kid. A great kid even. She is quite happy to do what she wants, helps out when we have things to do and even listens to us when we ask her to do something. Usually.

Now I’m no expert on kids, psychology, parenting or being a Dad but I have 2+ years of experience under my belt and I know what doesn’t work with Layla. What works? I’m still not 100% sure, but I’m figuring it out. I’ve tried many different methods – sometimes yelling works, sometimes spanking works, sometimes just the threat of no dessert works. But then, sometimes she just yells back, sometimes she just asks to be spanked again and sometimes she is happy to have no dessert… then what do you do? Tamie has found a solution that seems to work for her pretty well.

When we were in Canada over Christmas, someone taught Layla the “I got your nose” game. For a while she was taking everything from our noses to our ears to whatever she could reach. She loved it. When we turned it around, however, and got her nose or her ears, she wasn’t too happy and always demanded we give it back. It’s hilarious, at least for me. For Tamie, it’s useful.

It’s not uncommon these days when Layla starts acting up to hear Tamie say something along the lines of “If you don’t listen to me, I’m going to take your ears!”… and, surprisingly, it’s not uncommon for Layla to do what her Mom says after that.

I don’t attempt to use Tamie’s technique, mostly because I doubt I could keep a straight face… but it works for Tamie. And that’s good news for all of us.