It should come as no surprise that Natalie is a strong-willed, smart and opinionated little girl. She is 20 months old now, and she knows exactly what she wants and doesn't like to settle for anything short of it. Her favorite word "No, no, no" sometimes, you get that with a waving finger at you...Her favorite thing to do is when she is told not to do something, look at her parents in the eye, smile and do exactly what she was told NOT to do. Discipline is HARD. Hearing Natalie cry because we took chalk away or made her pick up a toy she threw is heartbreaking, but I know it's good for her and we are trying to teach her to listen to mom and dad.
What is the hardest is to figure out which battles to pick...We went through a couple of weeks of Nessie not wanting to get dressed in the morning. Some days we would go to school in pajamas and no shoes, other days we would find to get dressed. Is it that big of a deal to get her dressed? Are we just breaking her spirit by pushing her to put those shorts on, or are we enabling bad behavior in the future where it communicates to her that she can only do what she wants to? Who knows? I sure don't.
I guess we shouldn't be surprised, both Matt and I are pretty stubborn people who know what we want.
And we are super proud of Natalie for asserting her will :) just wish it wasn't aimed at us :)
No comments:
Post a Comment