Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Another Kadan moment...

that makes me question how to be a good mom. Kadan has been pushing the limits lately. One limit that I refuse to go unpunished is hitting or biting. So, after he thought is would be funny to slap Addy and then wake her up by biting her I was at my whits end. What in the world am I to do to teach him that violence is not funny? Do I fight violence with violence and resort to spankings? Do I put him in longer timeouts in his room? The spanking idea just did not seem right and time outs seemed too easy. During my contemplation a thought came to my mind -- What can be a beneficial type of punishment? Addy deserves to be compensated for her pain. Then I had an Ah-Ha moment -- starting tonight, Kadan will become Addy's servant for the day. It started off with rubbing her feet with lotion tonight before she went to bed. Tomorrow he has plans to feed her breakfast in bed and clean for her.

A few minutes into the "service" Addy asked for some money, "Mom, I need some money."

Me "Why?"

"Because I need to give it to Kadan for doing all this nice stuff for me." I then talked to her that service was for free and he did not need to get paid. She then said, "then can I decide what he does for me? Maybe he can hand out presents for us." How nice is this -- she is thinking of fun things that Kadan can do to serve her. Would he return the favor if she was to serve him?

Then a few moments after my conversation with Addy, Kadan said, "Since Addy is making it fun and easy on me, I think I am going to serve her for 2 days." -- Yeah!! Victory!

As a funny side note -- As we were talking, he did make a list of things he would not do. "Mom, I'm not going to fix her hair since I hurt her when the brush gets stuck. And what I am NOT going to do no matter what is wash her body when she is taking a bath."

Okay -- I can live with that. Let's see if this punishment is victorious.

5 comments:

The Amayesings said...

I lOVE it! I'm going to copy. You're a great mom. Don't even TRY to say you're not. What cutie pies!

mechan said...

what a great idea you had i wonder if that would work for my 2 older ones thanks for the card it was nice

Robyn said...

So creative! I never would have thought of that one. Let us know how if it keeps working.

Annelise H. Jensen said...

Jen, I love it. What a great idea. I just read through the blog posts I have missed and I wanted to tell you how much I love it! I am so glad you keep a blog, I love hearing about your family. And thank you for our awesome Christmas present! It was so dang creative and cute!!!

Chel said...

I like Kadan was deciding what he wouldn't do..he's a thinker! I can just picture him giving a foot rub...too cute.