It Was One of Those Days Toddler Addition
 

It was one of those days that I am so thankful we chose Gentle Discipline.

Our youngest is 22 months old, he is bright and sweet and quite curious, he loves to copy everything we do which to his almost-2 perceptions misses the mark and equals big messes. :doh

We have family visiting, family that was not gentle and it occurred to me that they likely would have hit DS several times today for being "bad".

Ds woke up over an hour earlier than usual this morning, took a short nap and by 4:30 was just a melting mess. He wanted to go to bed (but dh and i didn't want to be up until midnight with him) we took turns dealing with shrieking and miserable baby while we also got dinner together. DS got into quite a bit of trouble in that time, he got a hold of a water cup someone left in his reach and dumped it on a book (in a blink, we aren't even sure how he did it so fast) and was spreading the water through the pages in fascination. :doh

He did a few other things after dh told him no/redirected him (not his norm, he is very easygoing generally) but the combination of less sleep, lots of strange (ish) people in the house, busy Mama (cooking for all the people, and our dishwasher broke so I've been cooking and washing up after 9 people without much help) it has been a rough week and a rough day.

As he melted down over the 15th thing that hour it occurred to me that he would have gotten several swats already if we were doing things the old way. :( his toddlerhood would be full of swats. Today we saw his behavior as developmentally appropriate with a lot of unfortunate situations exacerbating everything. We didn't let him run wild without guidance, we redirected and dealt with him where he was at. Gentle hands hugging him because we knew he was tired, eyes seeing someone having a hard time.

It was just eye opening. Gentle Discipline is not something we were raised with, we are far from perfect, but when i think how often our kids would be hit (especially one of our kids who is very spirited) how much closer/attuned to needs we are to our kids because of GD. It is good stuff. I may not be doing everything right, but i feel so good about our decision to use gentle hands (and the fact that the thought of hitting a toddler is appalling)

:heart

Re: It Was One of Those Days Toddler Addition
 

I have similar thoughts often, especially dd2 and ds2. Thanks for sharing :heart

Re: It Was One of Those Days Toddler Addition
 

:heart

Re: It Was One of Those Days Toddler Addition
 

Thanks for sharing. :heart

My brothers and I were spanked growing up, and now that I am a mother it makes me so happy to see that children CAN be raised without it. :)