Question
HI there,
Thank you for your prompt responses on my questions including taking back control and being a parent-centred family. The children have misbehaved so much (during the holidays) that I am going insane - so many things to tackle for both kids!!
Hence, I have started to become intolerant of my children's misbehaviour. The situation with my little 3.5 year old son has improved *dramatically* within 3-4 weeks of taking back control! As for my 6.5 year old, I have just brought her to the hairdresser to get her hair cut to a bob so its lower maintenance, after months of getting her to comb, wash it properly, and not fuss/whine/attitude when told to comb. I even gave her the responsibility of combing her hair 1x or 2x daily - but she's not able to do it without reminders. Hene the decision to cut her hair. Needless to say, she is very, very, very upset with me. Now when this kind of thing happens, she typically makes rude remarks to me, hits her brother, and there's lots and lots of rude backtalk towards me.
I have read many of your questions - you tend to advise parents to ignore the backtalk. Should we ignore it? (Kevin Leman seems to think backtalk should not be tolerated). My husband and I also think its not acceptable to talk rudely to a parent no matter how upset. (we were never allowed to as children). Plus, when I ignore it, I find she tends to escalate the disrespecful attitude and then becomes rude more and more of the time when she talks to us or answers us. I guess my question is - still ignore or nip this in the bud? Or do we ignore if it its a byproduct of discipline - and just nip disrespect towards being given an instruction? or ignore all all of it!
Another question - we are in the process of doing tickets for the son, and strikes for the daughter for ignoring instructions. What do we do when other behaviours (not on the list) crops up - such as today, I brought them to my piano lessons (had no choice today) - there were toys there. But then they had a fight there, with hitting and all, with very loud whining. I confined them both to their room for the rest of the day with bedtime at 6:30pm. Basically, I over-rode the tickets program for the day as fighting in someone else's house is a no-no! Should I have done that? Under which situations would you recommend overriding the ticket program? Sometimes other behaviours crop up that require immediate attention - what do you do then?
