Thursday, December 1, 2011

Terrible Three's

I had to balance out my Happy post of the day with this Grumpy one! If you want something to read that is more uplifting, skip this post.

Who's the grumpy one? Why Sir Isaak! Ever since we cut off his hair, he's turned into more of a punk! HA I know that's not why. It's just a coincidence.

Isaak's a major bear when it's time to wake up from a nap and in the morning time.

When Mica went through this at Isaak's age I just yanked his clothes off and dressed him as quick as possible, while he screamed in my ears. I also put him to bed at 7. So early, but hey he woke up GRUMPY! When none of the above worked out I put Mica in bed with us for 15 minutes for cuddle time and he was much better about getting up. Daddy didn't like it, but it seemed to work with Mica not being in a FUNK. I'm not sure if I'll do this with Isaak or not. I have mixed feelings about it. Sure it made him less grumpy, but it also allowed him to think it was ok to come in our room to cuddle every morning.

Advice? Please don't say, "Beat your child to control him!" That's the advice I got from my co-worker, and I wanted to beat his face in. Not really, I just shrugged it off; thinking I won't do that. To make his advice worse, he mentioned, "That's the only way to control children. Isaak needs to know who's boss!" Oh and his kids never acted that way because he spanked them to control them. Two parenting polar opposites! Ya we kind of clashed.

To us, kids and parents need to respect each other. I'm not going to spank my child for not wanting to get out of bed. I don't even want to get out of bed. There has to be another reasonable answer to fix Isaak's grumpy stage, or at least get through it. Mica went through it, he got over it. Isaak will to. It's just a matter of how to deal with this stage, while it's present.

I even remember my sister, Aunt Terra going through this stage. She's 5 years younger than me. I used to have to get her up on days that my mom was at work once or twice a week. Terra would not get out of bed! This is crazy, but worked: I pretended that we were trapped in an episode of She Ra. You know, "The princess of power." I was belittled to that! HA Hey like I said, it worked! Princess Terra otherwise known as She Ra got up to get ready to save the castle.

Sometimes I puppy bark to get Isaak to smile when he wakes up. Silly again, but he likes puppies. Reverse psychology works on him to. Daddy says, "Isaak don't smile!" Generally he does.

It's not just about getting out of bed. Isaak's determined to let his punk side show through at other times to. Thanksgiving weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Apel's: Grandma Apel offered them many different things to drink all weekend. At home it's water or milk. For breakfast it's juice and on the weekends it's homemade juice. They aren't allowed to have juice at any other time of the day. He thought he could have Limeade for breakfast. Daddy bent a bit by pouring in 1/4 limeade and 1/4 water. NOPE! Isaak had a melt down! He cried in the back room with Daddy for 1/2 an hour over the deal. Sure we could have let him have his way. We wouldn't. He doesn't get his way all the time. Melt down it was. Daddy stayed with him, so he wouldn't feel abandon. We were at someone else's house other than our own. I was wondering what Grandma and Grandpa Apel were thinking? Were they thinking like my co-worker? A different generation, a different outlook. I'm not sure. It doesn't really matter. We didn't let him have his way, but we weren't spanking him either. He got a giant Super Nanny time out until he cooled down enough to have breakfast.

Other Punk Experiences:
  • Yesterday Isaak wanted to wear his new short sleeve t-shirt without a long sleeve shirt under it. 
  • That evening he refused to let me button up his jammies at night. He had to do it. It took twice as long, but he has to learn sometime.
  • Today was a day where he didn't want to get up out of bed. 
  • Grandpa Spiehs took cousin Elijah and Isaak for a walk. Elijah refused to wear his gloves and hat, so Isaak did to; just because Elijah wouldn't. They were freezing, but wouldn't wear their extra gear.

It's a Terrible Three stage! I can't wait to get past it.

It's a stage where they want to figure things out on their own. They don't have the coordination to do everything just yet. They are unreasonable and strong headed. Isaak's gone through this stage once already; it left and now it's back again with a vengeance.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its a lovely stage isnt it? my godson is 3 and he is the exact same way :)

Heres hoping the 3's get a little less terrible for you :)

Eat To Live said...

Oh Geeze Alissa... That could make you crazy trying to think of ways to get him out of his funk.

I would like to be there when you are puppy barking at him. LOL... I might just pee my pants.

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