“That Difficult Age”
Man-oh-man, Sweet Savvy is at that difficult age! I always say that 12 months – 24 months is SUCH a difficult age and boy is she reminding me of that lately.
Of course, Kip and I aren’t helping things. We’ve been so besotted with this baby that we’re like two blathering fools. She’s over in the corner having a fit and the two of us are sitting there like idiots going “oh, the baby is so beautiful even when she’s mad” and “oh, it’s just so precious”. I looked at Kip the other day and said “What in the world are we doing??? We KNOW better!”
Savannah, 21 months old, Thursday, 5/28/09 (I often wear my sunglasses pushed up on my head like this- I love that she found these kid sunglasses and is copying me. Such a cute baby.)
It’s time to crack down on the fit throwing, etc. One thing that I’ve never totally successfully trained for at this young age is sitting- I KNOW she can do it, but somehow I’ve failed in this area.
Anyhow, Kip and I??? We’ve got work to do.
Here’s a couple posts that have been encouraging to me lately.
Like Mother, Like Daughter has a really excellent post up entitled “Dear Aristotle, he’s so clever” about obedience.
Here’s the goal (it’s two-fold): To enjoy a bit of peace at home, and to be able to tell God that you took seriously the obligation to train your child to be virtuous — which, as dear Aristotle reminds us, is the ability to do the right thing for its own sake.
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Foolish parents constantly react to (or ignore) their children’s misbehavior, instead of taking the time to instill good behavior.
They constantly seek affirmation from their children, and so are either afraid of administering the punishment necessary, or retreat after doing so out of surprise that their children show them attitude.
Attitude is what I define as a reaction that you can safely ignore or call out (“Young lady, stop that whining!”), but never take seriously — never let affect your own will.
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Generation Cedar has a good blog post up entitled “Early Child Training“. Here’s an excerpt…
My youngest daughter (18 months old) has entered “the moment of truth”. It is crucial, IMO, that child training starts very early–even as babies we begin using certain words to get them familiar with our expectations, but between the ages of about 1-3, training is intense…they are
testing the waters
checking the boundaries
making sure the perimeters are in place–’cause it’s going to be a scary world if they’re not.
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Childwise Chat has been doing an excellent series on obedience in children. Well worth the time to read and very encouraging.
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