Lessons in Sharing

All is pretty calm and peaceful in the McFadden home.

Kelly's sickness is leveling out. It's still bad, but it's becoming more managable. I don't know if that is because she's more used to it now or if it's because it's getting better. Whatever it is, we are grateful.

Bailey is fantastic. She has developed a new word..."MINE". This is never spoken softly. It is always yelled, as she's holding whatever it is up and away from whomever she is scolding. She says it with her little eyebrows pursed and her mouth set in a defiant line. Oh yes. We love childcare.

We spent a couple of hours with Danny yesterday while his Moms did some shopping. We had a couple of hours with just Danny while Bailey slept. He is such a sweet little guy. He struggled a bit when his Mommy left him, but quickly calmed down and spent the majority of the time just sweet and playing. Bailey woke up a couple of hours after he arrived. They played together.

It was during this that we finally had to accept that our daughter isn't perfect. She kept trying to take Danny's toys!!! And as she is significantly larger than Danny, she usually suceeded. She would walk right up to him, grab whatever he had and scream "MINE". Well.

I should pause for a second here and say that I don't deal well with kids that do that. It makes me so angry. The hardest part of parenting for me is turning off my instinctual response (which would be grab the toy from her and say...nope...it's MINE...which would only teach her that the biggest person in the room actually can win). Instead, I have to step back for a second, compose myself and deal with the situation in a way that is appropriate, rational and fair. LOL - that's hard for me, actually.

So, my response to her was to walk over, get on her level, put my hands on her hands, and tell her that we don't take toys from other kids. I gently took the toy away from her (not yelling, not tugging) and handed it back to Danny. Bailey immediately went for it again. I intervened again, stopping Bailey from taking the toy and telling her that we must share our toys and that if she did it again, she would have timeout. I backed off. Bailey hesitated, but went for Danny's toy again.

Before I continue, I should point out that Danny had moved on. See, Danny is so calm and indifferent to all that. You could almost hear him thinking "Well, fine...have it. I'm gonna get this one over here." He wasn't upset, didn't seem phased in the slightest. Perhaps a bit disgusted with Bailey's behavior (or is that me projecting my emotions???) but otherwise, perfectly content to just let her have the toy.

Me, on the other hand, will not let Bailey think that is an acceptable form of interaction. So, as promised, I took the toy away from her and set her down on the "timeout" bench. This bench sits in our living room and is quite remote from the house, without being isolated. We think it will be ideal as a timeout spot. I sat with her, of course, and I explained (as she was screaming) that we cannot take toys from other people. 30 seconds later, I let her down. Of course, a 15 month old doesn't understand much, so the timeouts must be kept very short. She calmed immediately and went back to playing nicely.

We did this 3 more times (for a total of 4 30-second timeouts in about an hour). She would play really well after the timeout for about 10-15 minutes and then she seemed to forget herself. Each time, I would intervene and go through the process again.

BUT, after the 4th timeout, Bailey seemed to get it. Danny was playing with the ball (there are three of them in our house), but Bailey wanted it. She started to take it from Danny but stopped when I spoke to her. She backed off. Danny pushed the ball towards Bailey. Bailey picked it up and brought it back to Danny...SHARING!!!! She did fantastic for the rest of the day - sharing, or playing with her own toys while Danny played with other. Of course, we rewarded this great behavior with lots of clapping, "good jobs" and hugs.

Let's just say she had much more interest in whatever Danny happened to be playing with, but she was not aggressive about it. At one point, I had to use a bit of a "tone" with her and indicated that if she didn't stop what she was doing she would get a timeout. She dropped her little head and walked over to the timeout bench! Poor girl.

Later that night, as we were putting on lotion, we told her how good she had done and how proud of her we were. We know that she doesn't really get it all right now, but the point is not the specific words. It's the patterns of behavior. We will have expectations of her behavior...but they are not that she will be perfect. The expectation is that she will learn and correct her actions when needed. And, I think, it's fair for her to expect that we will admit when we are wrong and (in my case) to find ways of dealing with my own frustration at her behavior that are fair to her.

She may be only 15 months old, but she's not too young to understand human emotion. She got it when I was upset with her behavior. She got it when were cheering for to do something right. And she showed a definate improvement in behavior when she understood the consequenses of a timeout. What more can you ask of the child??

More importantly, I don't expect this to stick. At this age, I suspect we will do this same cycle over and over again. It takes a long time to develop self-control. LOL - I'm still working on it...hehehe!