Discipline: A Very Good Thing.

So BoyD got disciplined today. He does everyday to an extent, but today it was a little harder.

Today, after getting BabyK up from his afternoon nap, I asked BoyD to pick up his toys off of the floor so that I could put the baby down. He had out some magnetic stick/ball things and legos. Total choking hazard. I told him twice. I then proceeded to chit chat w/ my hubby while waiting for him to do what I had asked him. 10 minutes later, nothing was picked up and he had continued playing with them. Obviously, we had not enforced the rule that he obeys me 1st time when I ask him to pick up his things. When should I have enforced this? At the beginning. I have been very inconsistent w/ this, giving him 2,3 even 5 warnings before a consequence. I realize that this is not fair to him. How can he know if I mean it the 1st time or even the second if one time I enforce on the 4th or 5th?

That has changed. So after he hadn't picked them up, we took away the magnetic things (the first thing I had said to pick up). We then said that if he didn't have the legos picked up by the time that Brandon got back from putting the other toy away, that we would also take away the legos. He played some more, and got the legos taken away. So...the teaching has begun.

He then throws a fit and says "If you take these things away from me...you can just give them away! I don't want them!"

I have noticed lately that he has been saying things that he obviously doesn't mean when he's mad. And for the most part, we threaten to do what it is he says ("I will never play w/ that again!" kind of things) but as soon as the threat leaves our mouth, he changes his tune.

He keeps saying them b/c there are no real consequences for his actions. For his words. So Brandon talks to him about how his words matter, and we give the magnetic things to GirlM. They now belong to her. We weren't mad or yelling. We feel very bad for him and we told him so. We said how sad we were that he had said those things. After a lot of mad crying and stomping around and hiding in our closet from us, he creeps around the corner with puffy red eyes and comes over and climbs in my lap. He cries and cries. Consequences suck some times.

This is a good day. A good day for us...relearning to be consistent. A good day for BoyD. How many people have you known that say all kinds of things they don't mean when they are mad? No one ever taught them the consequences of that. BoyD has learned (probably not for the last time) that once words leave your mouth, you can't get them back in. The person you said them to can't un-hear them.

Discipline is a very good thing.