I have to admit the awful truth... I still brush DS8's teeth. He has enough plague buildup over 6 months on the back of his front bottom teeth that the dentist has to use a special tool to get them clean (I don't know if it uses sound waves or water pressure, but it blasts the tartar off in record time.) So DS usually has his nose buried deep in a book when I brush them.
I know that he has to do it himself eventually, but it is just not a battle that we can fight right now. His teeth are clean, no cavities, and when he gets tired of his mom doing it for him, he will one day just decide to do it himself.
We tried an electric toothbrush, but the noise from the motor was way too much for our sensitive ears. If they could make a whisper quiet one, then that would be the way to go.
Pud is 7 and is an only child. He gets a lot of my one-on-one attention. I would guess his love language is touch; mine isn't.
See, this is us exactly to a tee. Only child with lots of one-on-one attention. He is constantly hugging us (deep, pressure-filled hugs) and clinging to us, whereas I am extremely sensitive to touch, enough that even gentle hugs can be painful. (and I wonder where he gets his sensitivity issues from???) We don't set an alarm clock in the mornings because he wakes us up by flying out of his room at a high rate of speed and pouncing on us in a way that would make Tigger proud! I've also noticed last year that he needed to constantly be in contact with his friends at school, and the gentle hugs and arms around shoulders were not appreciated by the other boys. I look forward to reading the above book suggestion in order to understand this particular issue.
The only other thing that I can add about discipline is that we finally found DS's weakness. He is very into earning money these days by doing chores. He volunteered without prompting this weekend to mop the kitchen floor for me in order to earn some money. We don't give him very much money, which he is starting to realize by having discussions with other kids about allowances, but we give him a quarter here or there for a chore. So when we get tired of a particular behavior, we inform him that the next time he does it, it will cost him a quarter. We have been battling with him for quite a long while about... hummm, how should I put this delicately... leaving Lake Erie on the bathroom floor due to aiming issues. Finally, I told him that the next time I had to clean the bathroom floor, it would cost him a quarter. He never missed again. I also made a habit, when DS was about 5, of charging him a quarter anytime he was disrespectful, i.e. calling me a poopy-head, or other such name. That phase vanished instantly. It is equivalent to the change jar that people used to use for breaking the habit of saying a four-letter word. I still have to remind him that snarky behavior will cost him every once in a while, but generally he knows that it is just not worth it. It is one way to use these kids great math skills to our advantage. DS could calculate how fast his piggybank would go down if a particular behavior continued.
Math skills => Discipline => Happy Mom! What could be better?
But really it is about finding the one bit of leverage that your particular child will respond to.
