some good advice !

[geonagual]

I'm curious about the exercises though. What type of exercises are you talking about. I've got this picture of a hard ass Marine drill seargeant yelling "you little maggot, drop and give me 20" to a 3 yo. But if it works, hell, fill me in.

Well, I was a Marine. But now I am a stoned former Marine. So, I have more balance. For exersizes, we would do push-ups, mountain climbers and my favorite, the crab walk. I swear when my youngest was 6, she could do over 100 perfect push ups in a row.
Now, I cant get away with the exersizes. They are getting too old so I had to adjust the way I disciplined them.

[Fengzi]

They are getting too old so I had to adjust the way I disciplined them.

"They are getting to old", or you are ? Just kidding, how old were they when you started this? I really like the idea because it sounds like its a punishment that will do some good other than just correcting the behavior. My only concern would be that they'd develop some deep seated aversion to exercise and wind up some out of shape couch potato later in life. Any indication of this or has it been just the opposite?

[birdgirl73]

That exercise thing is interesting to me, but it also worries me a tad. I'd worry that, rather than making a pleasant association with exercise, my kids might begin to associate exercise with punishment and not be inclined to exercise for health and relaxation/recreation as they get older. That'd be my personal hesitation with that approach. When I was teaching, one of our districtwide policies was not to force kids to write as punishment. That was a fairly common penance when I was growing up--to have to write "I will not throw dirt balls on the playground" (or whatever) 50 times on paper or the blackboard--and they now know that that sort of punishment quickly begins to make kids associate negative feelings with writing, which schools have enough trouble encouraging students to do anyway. At home, I used time-outs, restriction of freedoms, removal of privileges and, if necessary, possessions like games/electronics, which did the trick with our son. He liked being able to do what he wanted and play with his stuff, so he generally toed the line if his "things" were at risk of being taken away.

The best kid-raising technique I ever learned as a young parent was the use of choices. I heard a wonderful, widely published pediatrician, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, talk about this on TV when my boy was just an infant, and it worked wonders when he got to the toddler years. When he began to throw a three-year-old fit or refuse to do something (for us, it was the terrible threes, not twos), we presented him with a choice. "OK, son, you can either sit here and refuse to put your shoes on and we can stay home, or you can put your shoes on and we can go to the park after we run errands." Or, "You can either hold my hand as we cross this parking lot, or we can go right back to the car and not go into the store at all." The choices let him feel in control and didn't give him the option to simply refuse since that didn't occur to him when presented with two fairly easy-to-weigh options. I used that technique on him till he was well up into elementary school and finally figured out what I was up to.

(Fengzi, I see you asked the same question I did above. I started this post and then the phone rang, and so I didn't see that you'd posted the same thing. Sorry!)

[VaporDaddy]

great thread everyone!
just my two cents...When your child throws a tantrum always try to be as calm as possible, speak in a normal voice, don't feel like you have to stop the behavior a.s.a.p. Be firm in your stance on the issue, don't ever give in if you are "right" or the child will learn to manipulate you.
Ignore bad behavior and reward good behavior.
when your child must be disciplined just remain calm and Consistent, they are smart, they'll learn about consequences quickly.
Choose your battles wisely!
I guess that was more than $0.02, oops

[friendowl]

that was like 5 cents vapordad

[slipknotpsycho]

FO, no she didn't snore lol....

[friendowl]

hey slip
when i was a lil ass kid
there was no where for me to sleep but in my grandmas room
one night when she was snoring all loud keeping me awake
i started playing "g.i. joe" on her body [she was the mountain]
i had all kinds of soldiers posted up on and around her
i was flying the plane whn i accidentally dropped it on her face
the mountain erupted and gi joes went flying everywhere

[slipknotpsycho]

hey slip
when i was a lil ass kid
there was no where for me to sleep but in my grandmas room
one night when she was snoring all loud keeping me awake
i started playing "g.i. joe" on her body [she was the mountain]
i had all kinds of soldiers posted up on and around her
i was flying the plane whn i accidentally dropped it on her face
the mountain erupted and gi joes went flying everywhere

lmfao i dunno why but that made me crack up laughing... i think it was mostly the bolded part

[dutch.lover]

I thought I would comment on a few things, although I am not a parent.

I don't agree with hitting as punishment either, but from personal experience I know that from the first couple of times my mom spanked my bum...I was so scared of it happening again I smartened up real good. I am sure there are better methods out there, but this one worked for me. I haven't noticed time-outs or sitting in the corner to work very well, but maybe that's not a representative sample that I have observed.

As for the healthy eating thing, it can get to a point where it backfires. Maybe this only happens with certain kids, but my best friend grew up in a household that only ate very healthy (no sweets and low/no-fat everything in their cupboard) and whenever she was out of that environment she would stuff her face with sweets! She eats more candy and chips than probably anyone I know. Also, because her parents would buy stuff like no-butter microwave popcorn, her and her siblings would turn around and add massive amounts of melted butter and salt to it to compensate. That's even worse than just buying the butter flavored stuff IMO. You starting to see what I mean? Their family is healthy in other ways, like exercise, which is probably a good thing, to balance out the kids' binge-junk-food-eating!

[Samwhore]

lmfao i dunno why but that made me crack up laughing... i think it was mostly the bolded part

yeah me too,

G.I. Joes RULE