28 October 2009

Confessions of a rotten mother

Scrumpy is very seldom naughty, and when she is it's short lived, but yesteray I went to check on her in her room to find that not only had she moved her pine double bed across the room in an attempt to get it out the door (again) she had also detached the head board. The bed is dead.

I sort of lost it. I didn't shout, but I dished out the punishment big time. It was the ultimate and in retrospect it was maybe a little heavy handed. I confiscated the video remote control for two sleeps.

She cried.

For about an hour, she cried. A little puffy face came and said "Control disappeared"

"Yes" I said but as the word left my mouth I realised all too late what I'd said and she crumpled again - "Disappeared" means gone for good. I tried my best to convince her, to get her to understand it was not disappeared just gone for two sleeps (a concept she can understand) but the sobbing kept getting in the way. We went through all our usual comfort things, reassurance things, what's happening things - including the return of the remote - I did all I could do.

I am a bad mother.

She cried herself to sleep. Scrumpy never cries, and I made her cry herself to sleep. I'm hoping I have done the right thing in sticking to my original plan and not caving (which I really wanted to do!) but only time will tell. Tomorrow the ordeal will be over.

6 comments:

Annicles said...

Always hard when you make your kid cry but there is always the chance that she was crying because she realised that she was responsible for the action and deserved the punishment. At least you didn't shout. I call that a victory!

Clare said...

Your right you have to follow through once you have said it

angela said...

Poor scrumpy, but you did the right thing you couldn't cave in, As you say she is quite capable of understanding. Just think how pleased she will be to get it back!

Amanda said...

Well, she ended up with TWO remotes! How good can it get? (we have two videos the same and she got both controls)

Enough said

kario said...

You are not a bad mother! It is hard to give a consequence that may be an overreaction and not back off, but we've all done that and you were right not to cave in.

Hope things are better today!

Anonymous said...

my daughter does this all the time - moves her bed and barricades the door! but based on your comment, i see this had a happy ending. =)