"Regular Tactics", well, time outs, losing a toy,losing a fun activity, give a warning before applying discipline. The stuff you read about in parenting books, magazines etc. The tactics my friends talk about. It doesn't work. Seems he really could care less if a toy is taken away,sitting in time out doesn't bother him one bit, even taking away fun things to do doesn't seem to matter. He really just smirks when this type of discipline is applied...complete and utter disrespect.
Yup.
You're living with the 6yo version of my now-14yo DD.
I have done "conventional" punishment/discipline with her-- and taken to EXTREMES, even... and it's absolutely useless.
As discipline, I mean.
I will also say here that my
personal belief on this subject is quite old-school and a little bit non-PC... but...
we're her parents, we DO have life experience and the judgment that comes with it, and we'll flex as much muscle as necessary in order to FORCE some measure of compliance with that authority. Period.
I do think that my hypothesis there has paid some dividends in that my DD has very very little
interest in being a "bad" teen, and is very very open in her communication about teen issues and her autonomy with us at 14.
But 6 through 8 years old was just about the nadir of my entire life, honestly.
I can distinctly recall having my then 7yo sit on our living room hearth-- with NOTHING to do, no talking to her, etc-- for
two days straight. I brought her food, she got bathroom breaks, and she was sent to bed on time each evening. It sounds cruel... but my DH and I were up against-- well, Cool Hand Luke.
What we've got, here... is failure... to communicate...
Hang in there.
I have NEVER figured out what my daughter's "triggers" really were/are-- she's too cagey and too manipulative to give us the ammunition... and she also has proven to be equally slippery re: "currency" to leverage HER. Her response to the reinstatement/removal of privileges has always been "Yeah--
whatever... you do your thing, and it's nothing to do with me,K?" (Maddening.)
I have found that about the ONLY thing that gets my daughter's attention is physical correction. Obviously, I don't recommend that approach with most kids, but all in all, in
my own well-considered opinion ONLY-- a well-timed swat to a clothed backside was far, far less cruel than some of the more "gentle" behavioral tools like removal of privileges. Again, this is circumstance-specific, but it is because there IS no way to leverage her by removing privileges, other than through VERY extreme measures, which are frankly cruel. You can take her all the way down to bare legally obligatory subsistence-- dry, minimally clothed and fed... and she's still not giving so much as an inch. She knows that she's got us-- that there's a point that we can't go past. She'll wait, thank you very much. The only way around it is to TRULY
get rid of her favorite possessions. I wasn't willing to go there, and she knew it-- so while I might take them from her, she knew she'd be getting them back eventually. {sigh}
Our major method of punishment
now is removal of autonomy (with a clear message that it's happening because she has "demonstrated an inability to use sufficiently good judgment on her own," ergo, we are stepping in to DO IT FOR HER), and controlling her free reading.
Don't expect to get
satisfaction, even so, however-- I have NEVER gotten that from her, and I expect that I mostly will not. She is NEVER going to give me contrition or repentant body language/expression.
You are right, I think, to consider this a power struggle. That is
precisely the case with my DD. I decided when she was about four years old that I was
in it to win it. The reason? Because it is in HER best interests to learn to submit to authority, of course, but also because it was in her emotional best interests to feel that SHE wasn't the one "in charge" and that there was an authority in control of things in her life. If I had let her win, she would not have felt secure or safe as a young child in a non-PG world. Even at 4, it bothered her to see adults blithely doing such obviously stupid things-- scary place, if a PG child feels like NO responsible adults are in charge, YK?
So DD has a safe zone with me; primarily established because I never let her "win" her ongoing power struggle with me. I've gotten to loosen up things over the years as her maturity and judgment have improved. It's not that I
want the autonomy that belongs to her. It's that I'm not giving her MORE than she's ready for-- even if she insists.
Her dad is another story-- she has regularly rolled over him-- but she also doesn't TRUST him as much as she does me. Why? because he
doesn't enforce rigid boundaries with her, IMO. He lets her soften the behavioral standard beyond where he really should... but then snaps back when she pushes too far, and gets really ANGRY with her. I don't really do that. Oh, sure-- sometimes she will inadvertently go too far with me, too-- but mostly she KNOWS where the bounds are. Knowing, she doesn't push them. Anymore, I mean.
I do
not put up with major disrespect for adults. Us included. It's simply not an acceptable means of demonstrating disagreement. It's bratty.
I guess what I'm saying is that she is a MUCH better teenaged girl than she was a 5-8yo child, but I credit the hard, hard work when she was that age and it was so difficult. I made her write apologies to me, to her dad, to a teacher, and to anyone else that she was nasty to. If I'd let her roll me, she'd be a hellion now. I believe it. (I was, and so was my BIL-- and DD is eerily like us both.)
I've mentioned
The Manipulative Child here before-- many times, in fact... but I can't recommend that book enough for this kind of child. FORGET what parenting guidelines tell you children are capable of at particular ages. You're parenting a world-class, hardened criminal defense attorney with acting skills that ought to result in an Oscar nomination. Oh-- but with all of the judgment and impulsivity of a 6yo.
Cheers.
Just know that you're not alone, and that if you hang in there, it
does get better.
I've never figured out a way to punish HER without punishing anyone else, incidentally. I wanted to go with her and a friend of hers to the local art museum on Sunday, but then had to tell her "NO WAY" rather abruptly on Friday afternoon because of some stunt she pulled-- er, or tried to, anyway. Point being,
I got "punished" as well, when I punished HER. That's the way it is, though.
