Whoever said it is the terrible 2's and 3's lied, lied, lied! At least in our case it was not true. Mimi's 2's and 3's were a breeze. The sassiness started at 4. Just a very minute smidgen though. Then came the 4's, 5's and now 6. It finally came to head in the early part of this week. Phew!!! I feel as though I went to war and back.
Just out of curiousity, I looked online to find out about the characteristics of a 6 year old. What it boils down to is this...... 6 yrs old = non-compliance. The pschologist also said that the kid will raise the bar each time and the parents have to stick to their guns until the kid drops the bar (whenever that will be) and that is known as "extinction". Then the kid will every now and then check in too see if the parent is on the alert. The good news is that if the parent is still on the alert, the sassiness is shortlived. I think Mimi and I have hit the extinction part.
Last Monday Mimi was just as sassy as all get out. Finally I just told her that I was not going to fight or argue with her anymore and that as "punishment" she is to put ALL of her toys in the spare bedroom. "You mean I have to EARN THEM BACK???" the girl asked. "Yep, you got that right babe" I answered. "With the way you are going, you may not even get any toys for Christmas" I continued. "Well you don't know Santa's phone number nyah, nyah, nyah" the child retorted. "Oh yes I do. It's 1-800-Santa!" I answered back. Of course we all know who the REAL Santa is.
As a result, Mimi put all of her toys in the spare bedroom and she was warned that if the sassiness continued I was going to cut off her playdates and swimming lesson. She continued with the sassiness so as a result she missed out on a swimming lesson and not one but TWO playdates with her best friend Blake. It darn near killed me but I stuck to my guns. By Thursday, I could see that it was starting to pay off. All week long, all the child had to play with was Butch and her books. Thursday night she says to me in the gymanstic parking lot "Mom, I've been thinking about all of the crap I've been giving you and I'm sorry". We kissed and made up. These past few days have been a breeze I'm happy to say. There was a whole lot more that we talked about these past few days too.
I told Mimi that since today we will not have the time, that tomorrow she could put all of her toys back into her room. She was quite pleased with the idea needless to say.
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wow we are going thru the same exact thing. sometimes i wonder where did our happy 5 yr old go? i will try what you suggest...
ReplyDeleteLike I said, Monday we had the "wildfire". Yesterday it was "Smouldering embers". She tried the sassiness again and worked her way out of getting her toys back. They are still locked up in the spare bedroom. She had a full on tantrum. Then came the no playdates. The crying and whinning still continues, "ok, now you worked your way out getting you nails done with me" I said very calmly. That hit the sore spot with her. I very calmly reminded her that I was not going to argue or fight with her anymore. I then continued with "If you want to work your way out of seeing the taiko drums at Uwajimaya on Saturday and Elsie's birthday party on Sunday you can stop this whinning and crying or we WILL STAY HOME" I said. Everything came to a dead standstill right then and there. I stuck to my guns, toys still locked up, no playdates nor nails done yesterday and my sweet, charming, lovable Mimi is back. The good thing about this whole ordeal is that like Samantha, Mimi is very bright and now that she knows that I mean business, the sassiness and tantrum episodes are shortlived. This time the whole ordeal was less that 30 minutes compared to last Monday when it was the whole doggone day.
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