I have had multiple bruises on me from times he has hit, kicked or smacked me over the last month or so...I have tried just speaking with him about his feelings and proper ways to vent, have tried the lovey dovey method that everyone has a right to their feelings...and now he does time out for hitting...which has led us to try to come up with some kind of system that allows us to focus on the positive but am I just supposed to ignore the out of control behaviors in hopes that by modeling and focusing on the positive that they will "go away"?
Oh, no, certainly not. I am absolutely not an advocate of parents letting themselves be pushed around or abused. I
do believe in modeling. When DD hits, I try to think about how I would like her to behave if a child hit her. Would I want her to hit back or otherwise try to punish the child? Would I want her to yell? Would I want her to tell the child to stop, and then remove herself from the situation if the child did not stop? Clearly the latter would be the best solution. So if she acts violently, I leave. I protect myself, just as I would want her to protect herself if someone hit her. We have had great success with this approach (much more so than we had when we yelled or tried to send her away for time outs).
I would be the last person on earth to say that there is only one right way of parenting. I am very aware that I do things as a parent that I never believed I would do. So please don't think that I am judging. You asked for opinions, and I gave mine perhaps a bit more candidly than I should have done.
Not to hijack, but I am not aware of any research suggesting that these rewards systems do promote development of intrinsic motivation (and I am aware of some research to the contrary), so I would be very interested to see some if anyone wants to share.
