A Battle of Wills

Shouldn't have waited until the last day to try and find heart shaped cookie cutters. Might have to just cut them out freestyle. Lily and I are making heart cookies for dad and Mandy today. We got the idea from a magazine my parents got for Lily. We have been talking about this for weeks and she is so excited. Counting the days to Valentine's day. Too bad I didn't think to get all the stuff until the last moment.

Lily and I have been having a battle of wills. Pretty much since she was born. Now she has gained the ability to manipulate me. It is no longer just that she refuses to do things she doesn't want to do. Now she pushes my buttons just to watch me squirm. She can make me go from happy to crazy insane mad in less than 30 seconds. She is very good at manipulating me.

I have always tried to be very protective of the girls' feelings. I want them to grow up feeling that they are worthy of being treated well. I may go a bit overboard, but my husband constantly reminds me to enforce boundaries etc. Yesterday was the last straw for me. Lily just pushed me too far too many days in a row. I decided to start a new discipline technique since none of the ones I have been using have worked. I tried taking things away from her.

First I took away cartoons. Jeff had a function and Mandy worked. So Lily got me all to herself with no cartoons last night. Not that she watches cartoons at night but we missed our afternoon spongebob, she was not impressed.

Next I took away her babies. She loves her babies. She sleeps with her babies. She has tea parties with her babies. She tells them stories. They go with us everywhere we go. I felt very bad taking away her babies, but she needs to stop hitting me and herself. She hits 100 times a day and it is just so frustrating. She never hits other kids or even her sister. Mostly just me and herself, she knows that irks me more than anything. She doesn't hit hard. She isn't mean, she just gets frustrated by everything I say and do, or she just wants to control everything I say and do. So she hits.

The babies worked for a little while. We had to go and pick up Mandy from school. Lily hit me while we were getting ready to leave the house and I told her we would have to put her babies in my closet when we got home. We had to leave the house immediately or I would have done it right away. Lily was so very nice the whole time we picked up Mandy from school, waited while she changed into her work clothes, drove Mandy to get some food, and drove her to work, and drove home. Lily is usually not an angel in the car. I was very proud of my awesome parenting skills.

We got home and I was still feeling bad about the babies. I told Lily she was so good in the car that I would give her another chance and not take away the babies. Lily said, no that the babies needed to go into my closet, and so they did. The hitting resumed again and this time I took away her baseball bat, we always hit a few balls in the afternoon. She got pretty mad. Next, I told her I would be taking away her favorite pajamas.

I bought them a size too big and they have lasted two winterer's. She loves her pajamas so very much. They are in tatters. She has dozens of newer non tattered pajamas, but these are the pajamas she loves. We were hit free for the rest of the night. We even went to pick up Mandy from work. She was a half and hour late getting off from work. A couple of times when I said something Lily did not approve of she would raise her hand and I would remind her of her pajamas.

This morning she gets back all her stuff and we start over. I hope this will help her to break this horrid habit. But, I am afraid she will just find another way to upset me.

One time when we were using the star chart reward system to break the hitting habit. She did a great job of going to the playground. Usually when I say it is time to go she hits me or herself and screams. We talked about it first. We set a time we would be leaving. She checked the time the whole time we were there. When it was time to go she did a great job. No fits no hitting. When we got to the car, I told her what a great job she did, how very proud I was of her,... She looked me right in my eyes and hit my leg and told me I don't want a star. So no star. Usually the star chart works with her, but not enough to give up hitting her mom.