Daelyn Acting Out

This morning, while the children were eating breakfast, Dane started crying and told me that Daelyn had punched him in the chest three times. For a season, we seemed to have Daelyn's violent tendencies and his hitting, punching, kicking, biting ... under control. But things have gotten worse again so it was time to clamp back down on the discipline.

When we were spanking for each hitting offense, I began to get an uneasiness in my spirit. Somehow, it didn't seem right to discipline hitting with spanking. Don and I decided to try time-out's. We have two high stools in the kitchen, so I'd pull one out into the middle of the kitchen floor, away from anything that possibly could become a toy, and Daelyn would have to sit silently for the number of minutes of his age.

This morning, the time-out stool came back out. Daelyn started shrieking as soon as he saw me pull the stool out.

"Not the time-out stool!!!" he screamed. "I'm not sitting on that!! Not the time-out stool, Mama."

You would have thought I had just opened the door to a torture chamber. As he shrieked and grabbed the back of the stool, shaking it in anger and frustration, I set the timer for 4 minutes - one more than the last time he experienced a time-out. I finally told him that if he didn't stop mistreating the furniture, he would be spanked. He settled down to his 4 minute punishment.

But, oh, can he find things to complain about. He's supposed to be silent - the real challenge to time-out stool - but he needed a Kleenex because the crying got the nose started running. Then he needed the trash can for the soiled Kleenex. Pretty soon, Sissy was silently wandering around the kitchen bringing him the big kitchen trash can and placing a box of Kleenex on his stool. She put her finger to her lips, cautioning him not to speak, but smiled at him in reassurance.

The timer went off. Daelyn started to climb down and hit his ribs on the seat. He began wailing again. Dane ran to him and cuddled him, then walked him back to the breakfast table, Daelyn still crying.

"Do you want me to give you a Noogey?" Dane asked Daelyn. Daelyn frowned at his brother and yelled, "No!"

"Then how about I give myself a Noogey?" Dane proceeded to rub the top of his head hard with his fist. Daelyn started to laugh.

I watched all of this from my seat at the table. You sure can tell Daelyn is the baby of the family. He punched his brother in the chest, not once or twice, but three times and now Dane is giving himself noogeys to cheer up the little culprit. True love.

Love sure is patient and kind. And children seem to be able to express it in its purest sense.