Where There's a Will, There's A Child Completely Oblivious to Discipline

As mentioned in previous posts, genetics seem to be playing a major part in Clinton's blossoming personality. Our latest adventure in parenthood is learning how to apply discipline, so that we don't end up being the parents whispered about among the social circles...Can you believe how out of control their son is? Why don't they get him under control? Don't tell Courtney about our next playgroup, we prefer her wild child not wreck our house. Yes, I can hear it now.

What could we possibly need to discipline Clinton for? Well, first and foremost for his safety. If we see Clinton is about to hurt himself, we yell "NO!" and then he hurries up to get it done before we can get to him. If we go after him to stop him, he runs because he thinks we're playing chase which is his favorite game. Secondly, we want our child to be well-behaved. At home, Clinton spends all day literally running from one place in the house to the next. He runs to the drawers in the kitchen and empties out all the pots and pans. He runs around in his play room knocking over his basketball goal and dragging it across the room, and turning the end tables over, crawling up on them, and jumping off...I broke my arm TWICE as a small child doing something very similar. However, he stayed in the church nursery yesterday and stayed with Heather for a few hours today, and both gave me great reports about how well-behaved and calm he was. WHAT!?!? At church he passed out toys to all the other kids, after eating everyone else's goldfish. At Heather's he was calm and collected the entire time I was gone. When I returned, so did he...screaming and squeling, running from room to room, pulling plants out of pots, and trying to sit on Heather's baby, Dalby.

All day, it's non stop. And if I have to hear myself say, "No, no!" one more time, I might lose my mind...at least it feels that way. So, what kind of discipline have we attempted?

Well, we started with hand swatting...Clinton responded with clapping. Ugh. So, at the advice of some very experienced parents with two wonderful children on their resume, I began lightly swatting Clinton's leg. He never even acknowledged me touching him. So, I tried firmly swatting the back of his leg. Still refusing to acknowledge my presence or action, he would take 2 seconds to scratch his leg, roll his lip and then run off to continue whatever it was he wanted to do in the first place. "No, no!" "No, no!" "No, no!" ...this is where genetics kicks in, apparently Rodney and I were both like this. And anyone who knows me and Rodney, knows how strongly stubbornness runs through our DNA.

So, tomorrow we begin "time out". Something I have always thought was for the birds, as I came from a spanking family. But we have a child who is less affected by instant punishment, and needs to be pulled out of the situation completely. I guess each kid really is different.

Wish us luck!

I apologize for no pictures. I left my camera cord at my parents' and I'm waiting for it to arrive in my mailbox.