Part I: Definitions of Discipline

We are working on No One More Times, Yelling "NO!!" Is Sassing, and That Means You Too.  With a side of Respect Your Sibling's Special Time.  And in the Table Manners department, we are working on Sitting On Your Bum.  Of course, that doesn't mean that we're abandoning all our other ordinary manners, or things like lying to your mother are going to slip by, but those are the special projects of the month-ish (or whenever they get absorbed).  And if that sounds like it's overwhelming for the kids because we're working on everything at once, I assure you, it is NOT everything!

(Notice their flower names at the top of the page...)

In this post, I am going to write more about managing clear family policies and teaching discipline in a family of high-intensity young children.  It's something I think about every day, and sometimes every minute!  I am still frustrated with the older children's behavior, but we are making progress, together.  I will share some of the specific things that we are doing that work for the children, and I will share some of the ways that I think about discipline.

First of all, a little bit on what I think discipline itself is.  I think for all parents, but especially for those of us raising highly challenging children, that it is essential to be clear in our own minds about our own deeper philosophy behind what we are doing.  A clear definition of the end goal, and feeling clear about why we are making each choice, is the headlamp that lights our paths through all the swamps and dust-storms that our children constantly create around us.  It's not a floodlight that makes everything easy, but by constantly re-charging our mental batteries by thinking carefully about what and why we are doing, we parents can be the ones with the lights on, leading through the path of confusion.  Because our children are more confused than we are!

First of all, the word "discipline."  This is a word I use a lot, and to me it neither has negative connotations nor is it about the "no-and-punishment" side of parenting.  Discipline is discipleship, and discipleship is teaching, and teaching is what we do with our children all the time.  Discipline is the type of teaching that we do that is about areas like behavior and self-control, rather than areas like learning to read.  And we are teaching discipline to our children every moment, whether we are choosing to think about it or not.  What we model to our children is the most powerful message that we send!

I try to strengthen the message that I model by bringing it into the foreground and telling my children about myself.  I apologize when I'm wrong.  I talk about when I'm frustrated, and talk through looking for a solution.  I tell them stories about when I felt angry or upset, and how I dealt with it.  I try and focus on emotions that are within their little-kid palette of understanding, especially when there's an issue that they have been struggling with lately.  This is difficult for me to to do and I have to be conscious of it, not because I'm ashamed of making a mistake or getting frustrated at someone in line, but because I don't naturally show or talk about my emotions very much, and I'm good at hiding my emotions.  I have to step out of my comfort zone so my children can see that I struggle and have to deal with my struggles, just like they do.  Right now, I make it very clear about when I need to do something I don't want to do, or obey someone else's rules even though I don't like them, because this is a huge area of difficulty for my children.

Which leads us to the word "obey."  This is a word that was rife with negative Bible-belt connotations in the world in which I grew up, and my parents and everyone else avoided it entirely.  I don't any more.  Simple words are better for kids, and "obey" is a simple word for a lot of complicated ideas, including respect, cooperation, listening, delaying gratification, and accepting responsibility.  However, I define "obey" in the adult way, and not the child-only way.  Do we expect an obedient child to do whatever an adult says immediately and without question?  That is going to get him into a lot of trouble when he gets older, and people put pressure on him to do all kinds of things, including some we parents wouldn't like at all!  We can make it clear to children that they are allowed to use their heads and their words while they are obedient.  Even in the Bible, many prophets like Isaiah and Moses discussed issues with God, and brought up their concerns.  Moses took off his sandals in front of the burning bush, but he did not acquiesce immediately to what God had in mind.  If Moses can bring up his concern about his speech, and God can make a compromise of adding a brother-in-law to his team, then my children are being perfectly obedient if I ask them to set the table, and they say "may I please go get my game from outside first?" or "I don't remember where the plates are any more."  That's obviously different from screaming at me or running off, and that difference defines what obedience in children means to me.

Like in defining obedience, my husband and I think a lot about instilling values and habits that will serve our children well in the rest of their lives... which is often very different from what makes an easy and pleasant child!  I don't want my children to obey without question, because although that would make setting the table go a lot faster, it's not going to help them with peer pressure in high school.  We want to teach our children how to think and how to problem-solve, and I acknowledge that sometimes they're going to come up with a different answer than I have.  Tonight we discussed why Hibiscus had gotten a Sit, and I pointed out the rule on our chart and what she had done.  She agreed that she understood, and I asked if that was fair or if I was being a mean mama.  She mumbled that I was being mean.  And that was a fair answer.  My understanding of the situation was different from hers.

I love the Waldorf idea of "rhythm instead of discipline" (except obviously I think that rhythm itself is discipline, since discipline is positive), and it gets us a long way in this household.  And we are a Sousa march or a Strauss waltz -- no Copland allowed! -- as far as rhythm is concerned: everything that can be regularized is pinned into place.  But for my highly challenging children, a household rhythm isn't enough to contain the roaring rockets of their internal chaos.  So then the question is, consequences or punishment?

When I wrote about our Sits, some people commented that I seemed almost ashamed of giving out punishment and that time-outs are perfectly normal.  I am not at all ashamed of having consequences that my children don't like, but I want to be clear in my own mind about whether the Sits are consequences, or turning into punishments.  What's the difference?

I would say that a consequence is directly related to the particular event that happened, and that it allows room for the child to grow and move out of it.  A punishment is handed down from above, and the purpose is to make the child feel "yucky" (as my children say).  Let's go back to thinking about adult life: our lives are chock-full of consequences, but there are very few punishments.  If you go to a party and are laugh when someone gets hurt and grab all the hour d'oevers  from the snack tray, no one is going to take you into the other room and make you stay there for the rest of the party, but you're not going to have many friends or go to many more parties.  That's a consequence.  But because no one hauled you into the back bedroom, you have a chance to grow: you could sincerely apologize to the people you laughed at, and go into the kitchen and help make another tray of melon balls.  It wouldn't erase the negative, but it would change people's impression of you, and someone might invite you to a party another time.  Maybe.

Some parents think about that kind of consequence, and work really hard to make every consequence fit the misdeed exactly.  Some kid-problems have obvious kid-consequences if we simply step out of the way and don't fix it for them, but I don't go beyond the obvious.  My kids need regularity, and we do Sits for everything else and that is regularized.  I don't knock myself out thinking of the perfect matching consequence for every misbehavior.  But a Sit IS the natural consequence, because overall, their problem is that they need to calm themselves down and think before they act.  Or while they act, or after they act... in fact pretty much any thinking at all would improve most evenings around here!

Are punishments for children wrong?  I don't think they are entirely.  Again, in our adult life, there are some punishments.  A cop can give you a big fine for driving too fast, and I think a lot more people follow the speed limit because of the potential punishment than would without it!  But a punishment that is above and beyond the natural consequences of our behavior is rare, which makes it more powerful.  So if we parents find ourselves giving punishments a dozen times a day, that indicates to me that something is out of balance.  In fact, because young children are so spontaneous and have so little understanding of the world beyond themselves, I think there is almost nothing they can do to merit an actual punishment (being placed in a position to feel bad, instead of a position to grow).  My children are too young and too random to be acting maliciously, however frustrated their behavior might make me!

Something like a Sit or a Time-out could be a punishment or it could be a consequence, and it might look the same from the outside.  It is my job as a parent to be constantly asking myself, am I enforcing this in order to help them learn and grow, or am I trying to make them feel bad because they made me feel bad?  Do I want them to develop internal habits or just avoid something negative?  Right now, I do believe that the way we are doing Sits teaches them good internal habits -- like learning to STOP.  (I'm not sure the actual thinking part has made it into the equation yet... maybe next year!)  Both Emerson and Hibiscus get wound up until their internal accelerator is jammed down to the floor, and they can't learn anything else until they learn to stop that revving-up cycle.  Emerson and I worked on that for months this spring and summer, with me essentially stopping things for him over and over and over again, until he figured out how to slow himself down.  (We went home, closed books, put food back away, sat on roadsides, etc etc etc... that's mom putting on the emergency brakes.)  Actually, this is a little bit of a challenge right now, because it's very important to treat the two of them equally, but Emerson is moving a little bit beyond just plain needing to STOP, whereas Hibiscus definitely isn't.



Here is what I have learned academically about helping highly challenging children move beyond one challenging stage: repetition and consistency.  Here is what I have learned from actually parenting them: you have the same fight twelve million and fifty-two hundred times, until you go from thinking you are a particularly patient person to wanting to shake your child until their teeth rattle and then push them off a cliff, or at least out of the house you have to live in.  (That is not gratuitously violent imagery, that is a painfully honest description of raising two highly challenging children.)  But if you manage to make it through and be consistent and kind of calm for the fifty-two-hundred-and-first time, you suddenly realize that it's been days, or even weeks, and you haven't had that same argument any more, and they are cheerfully and pleasantly completing the challenged task.  It takes so long to notice because you are on your six millionth repetition of a different argument.


I am also learning that the more absolutely specific, exact, and clear my expectation is, the shorter the learning/arguing period is.  So we have walls covered with labeled drawings of routines and expectations and an entire home-made book of policies, as well as skits between dolls where the children laugh at how obviously one is misbehaving and diagnose the appropriate consequence, and certain phrases that we use over and over again.  Tomorrow, I'll write another post and go into detail about how we have used all those props to help the children gain footholds of understanding in the complicated world of Self Control.   And how frequently we have used the poster at the top of the page in the first 24 hours, and that apparently I should have put it up weeks ago...

Hibiscus Drives Us All Crazy

It's the middle of the afternoon, and I said we could have more birthday cake and presents if the kids could clear the table off.  No one started on that project, which seems like actual work, but Hibiscus found a piece of mostly-unused construction paper and made a birthday hat for Buttercup.  First of all she taped it into a cone shape, and when she put it on Buttercup's head the little girl started glowing with her unaccustomed special-ness.  Then she wanted to add a chin band, and Emerson helped her find materials and they all started singing "Happy Birthday" variations happily as they worked on the hat, while Buttercup fairly danced with pride.  Suddenly, Hibiscus decided it "wasn't good" and she ripped it apart and crumpled up the pieces, while the other children watched in shock and disappointment, and Buttercup's joyful little face melted away.

That's our Hibiscus!

Then she spent a while arguing, because I had already said I wasn't giving them any more paper or art supplies until the current mess had been cleaned up, but Hibiscus apparently felt that because she had made the mess even bigger while making all the other children upset, that she deserved an exception to the rule.  Which she didn't get, so she sulked.

Then she started cleaning one thing up, which is generally how it goes.  She wants to be helpful, but as soon as she starts she gets distracted or sees something new to get out.  In this case, she put some cheese from snack in the fridge, as I asked.  For some reason, Emerson was also near the fridge, and he pushed it shut, which Hibiscus thought was too rough, and she started scolding him.  One of our frequent scripts in this house is "who does Hibiscus need to worry about?" and the answer in "Hibiscus."  (In other words, stop bossing your brother and sister around!!!)  Hibiscus ignored me, and opened the fridge again and started fussing around with all the little bottles on the side, putting them in "perfect" order while telling Emerson how bad he was for messing them up.  I agreed that Emerson could have shut the door more gently, but thought there was no reason to stand there rearranging everything in the fridge meanwhile, so I told Hibiscus to get out of the fridge and Emerson to shut the door gently.  Twice.  Maybe three times.  Hibiscus said "I just doing this" and continued to adjust the bottles and then grabbed the door away from Emerson to shut it herself.  That falls under our Just One More criteria for a Sit, so she got one.  And she tried to sneak out of it when I wasn't looking, so she got a longer Sit.

Earlier today, I decided I would do just one little project that would make me feel better, so I had cleared off the couch.  It is the largest horizontal space in our main room, and it was totally heaped up with stuff.  Besides, then I could sit on the couch and do some work on the ipad while being kind of relaxed and drinking a cup of tea.  First of all I got mad at Emerson for climbing right on the newly-folded clothes I was arranging, and then the kids kept passing and dropping the extra parts from their projects on the nice clear couch.  After addressing each incident, I finally told the kids all to look at me, and to not put anything more on the couch today.  Period.

When I told Hibiscus she could come out of her Sit, she went straight over to the windowsill where Buttercup's birthday presents were sitting and picked up her most exciting new game.  I warned her that she better not be playing with her sister's new game without permission, and she said she wasn't.  Then she brought the toy bag over to the couch, and I said she had better not be putting anything on the couch, and she said she wasn't.  Buttercup was watching her lovely toy and her bossy sister with increasing worry.  Hibiscus then proceeded to take the toy that she wasn't playing with and dump the entire thing out on the couch that she wasn't putting things on.        


This is all in about the span of twenty minutes or so, but she is like this ALL.  DAY.  LONG.  She is constantly taking things from her brother and sister, which she is likely to break or just drop randomly in a different place.  She tells them what to do, and grabs things from Buttercup to do it for her and goads Emerson into getting upset, and then "reports" him for using his angry voice.  She ordinarily has a very good relationship with both siblings, although of course they have their little altercations, and they actually have a great deal of patience with her explosiveness.  One morning they were getting ready for school, Emerson and Hibiscus bumped into each other, and Hibiscus rounded on Emerson and screamed "DON'T BUMP ME LIKE DAT!!! DAT'S MY OWIE!!!"  I would have reprimanded her that it was an accident on both sides, and there was no call to scream, but luckily I am a little slow on getting between them.  Emerson turned and immediately apologized and asked to see her owie, and Hibiscus showed him her leg in that special aggrieved manner that young children reserve for small pains, and Emerson knelt down and admired it and sympathized, and then they both went on with their day quite calmly.

Buttercup is even more accustomed to being pushed around and adores every chance to be with her beloved sister, which is a little bit of a problem in itself and I am glad that she is gradually learning to stand up for herself.  Now in the last few weeks, Hibiscus is back to her early behavior in our house, when every time Buttercup says something she repeats it to the rest of the family, and every time Daddy or I address Buttercup, she answers quickly and loudly.  If we ask Buttercup to do something and she doesn't immediately jump into action -- which is pretty much always, because she is either going through a toddler-refusal, or just because she thinks things over carefully before beginning -- Hibiscus repeats it for her in Luganda, ordering her to do the thing in rapid-fire succession which simply confuses Buttercup, and then grabs the things out of her hands and starts to do it for her.

Or then there are times like this:  The morning after her birthday party, Buttercup wanted to look at her new book.  She sat in the middle of the floor to pore over it, and Hibiscus said "you want me to read it to you" and sat down next to her and took the book out of her hands.  Buttercup acquiesced because she likes spending time with her big sister.  But then a minute later I looked over, and Hibiscus is holding the book over Buttercup's head while Buttercup is reaching for it and starting to screech and sob.  Hibiscus saw me ready to interfere and protested "but she WANTS me to hold the book for her, Mama, she is wantin' me to do like dis!!"  Ah, no, my darling, I really think this is a misinterpretation of the situation!   Buttercup is becoming very capable of expressing her feelings about things -- not to mention understanding spoken English -- and yet Hibiscus will announce to the rest of us how Buttercup is feeling.  Which, coincidentally, always seems to be that Buttercup wants what Hibiscus wants, even at Buttercup's own expense.


But that's not the only thing she announces.  She tells me when my phone is ringing, or has the text-message sound.  If I don't come running immediately, she keeps telling me over and over, imitating the text-message sound.  She tells us when a Skype call is ringing.  She tells us when fire engines go by.  In fact, she informs everyone of every sound all day long, which I suppose could make her an excellent assistant if we were all deaf, but as it is she just makes us WISH we were deaf.

One day I asked her if she saw anything poking out of the side of my head, and that they were called ears, and since they were still in their usual place she might assume I could hear things on my own.  I tried to make a joke out of it, but I might have been too irritated to fully succeed.

But that's not all she says.  At the best of times, she is a talkative child, and there's nothing wrong with that.  As Daddy says, she gets a lot of practice in spoken English!  But when she's stressed or tired or excited or generally out of her precarious internal balance, she talks all the time.  And I do mean ALL the time.  One night I started counting to myself, mostly to give myself something to do other than run and scream, and I think the longest she ever went without talking was about three seconds -- and that was the exception.  Most of the time it is more like one or maybe two seconds; just long enough to hear what the next person might be talking about, so then she can tell them what they meant to say, or what she would say on the topic, or that they are wrong, or just because she was in the process of swallowing and was physically incapable of speech for a moment.  Only a moment, though, as she keeps talking through most of the eating process, even when no one can actually understand her because she is also shoveling food in at top speed.

I am a talkative person, as everyone knows.  My son has been a chatterbox since he could string words together, and does indeed have excellent speech for his age with all that practice, so I am used to talkative children.  And I'm the kind of person who doesn't mind some overlap in conversation, and with my good friends we will both be very talkative and sometimes be both talking at once, while also listening and one or the other pauses for a moment and then rejoins the story at an ebb in the other's conversation.  So, "talkative," I can handle.  I have experience.  You will have to trust me that Hibiscus is another category altogether.

So all through dinner, we have either a monologue or, if someone else gets a word in edgewise, she changes course and tells them what they meant to be saying.  We try to discuss conversation rules, but after a while it kind of puts everyone else in an exhausted coma, and no one else can think of anything to say anyways.  Then we get up from dinner, and she narrates what she is doing as she cleans up and gets ready for bed, along with telling everyone else what they should be doing, and of course every major or minor injury to body or soul she feels along the way... which are prolific, since she also is in her manic and awkward stage of the day.  Eventually we get to books.  As in, I read books out loud, and the children listen to them.  Except it goes something like this:

"Hedgie the hedgehog climbed --"
"Oooh, he is climbing, look he climb!!"
"--up to the hayloft ---"
"Mama mama mama, what a hayloft? What is dat one?"
"It's the top of the barn, see, right here.  -- the next morn ---"
"Look, dis one a bird!  Dere a bird in da sky here!"
"-ing to get a ---"
"One, two, tree, FIVE birds, YOU count Buttercup, one, two, no, you doing it WRONG I count da birds---"


I have my masters degree in education.  I know how valuable reading books is to young children, and that a significant part of the value is that it inspires conversations between adults and children.  The children get to explore and learn new vocabulary, and have practice talking about characters and counting objects and so forth, all with lots of interaction with their loving adult.  The conversation is an important part of the reading process.

Nevertheless, this is not what they meant.



I know in my head, that if it's been a hard couple weeks for all of us, it's probably been worst for Hibiscus.  She has by far the least internal regulation (even included Buttercup), so the move with all its change of routine has been the most difficult for her.  She has loved our guests, but they have come with more changes of routine and new personalities to figure out.  In the court room, she is the only one trying to balance complex relationships with both sides of people, and she's picking up all the emotions and understanding none of the logic.  She and Buttercup are more deeply disturbed by loving people having to leave (especially Daddy, but also Diane and it re-awakens how upset she is about Gramma and Bubba being gone), because they have more experience with loving adults leaving than loving adults coming back again.  So I understand.  It's enough to throw anyone off kilter, let alone a little girl who doesn't have much balance to begin with.

But lately, I've been pausing for a while at night to adjust her blankets and say a little prayer over her.  Because it's been easiest to love her when she's asleep.

Deal Breakers

Deal Breakers

I have always wanted to move my family to a foreign country for a while and imagined how that might happen.  Now it's turned out that we've kind of accidentally been in Uganda for a long time; long enough that it might be considered a temporary move, and I've thought about figuring out a way to move back again one day, perhaps when the kids are a little older and will be able to understand more and commit more to their long-term memories.  I think that's it's natural to romanticize being in a new place for the first few months, and then to become frustrated with it in the next few months, and eventually reach a greater acceptance of the true strengths and weaknesses.  So I recognize that I was idealistic about things this summer, and I'm currently in a grumpy funk that is probably more about me than about Uganda.

But emotional colors aside, I no longer have any ideals about moving back to Uganda while my children are young.

With better planning and a good project -- and children in a more stable stage of life -- I wouldn't need to be trapped in this feeling of isolation and being stuck that has made the last few months so difficult.  If I knew I were going to be here, and especially if I were involved in an organization, I could make connections and friendships that would be more fulfilling.  I've pretty much gotten over my frustration with cooking, between finding certain stores with certain ingredients and getting accustomed to the local fare.  (Although I would have to run a cheese-importing business!)  I've also gotten used to the transportation and how to get where I need to go, and if I didn't have a toddler who needs to nap, I would feel pretty flexible.  I'm getting used to the local manners and customs, and communicating and being friendly isn't nearly as stressful or tiring as it used to be. Some things are difficult, but I can make a decision to not let them bother me, or compensate in other areas of life -- being an introvert in a social society, lots of noise, different habits of friendship and expectations -- and life is never perfect anyways.

But the bottom line is, I wouldn't want to move back here because of my children.  There are too many expectations in this culture that I don't want my children to learn and internalize, and because the norm is so highly social, it is much harder to to present individual family values than it is in America.  As I see my primary goal at this point in life is giving my children a strong emotional, intellectual, and self-defining foundation, my perspective about living in a different culture is different than it would be for myself.

There's a lot that is positive about how children are treated here.  Children are very beloved, and we are praised (never censured) for being a "big family."   People don't mind kids acting like kids -- waitresses smile about the mess and other patrons laugh off my apologies for the noise.  I appreciate how babies are carried and nursed, and I like seeing daddies involved in caring for their kids, from babies in their arms to older children being lovingly taught the family jobs.  I appreciate the attitude of everyone helping out with the kids, and knowing when I am in my familiar environs, if my kids slip away from me, someone will step up and keep my kids from running out the door or wrecking disaster.  I appreciate that other adults will remind my children to listen to me, and to do their family duty -- often children listen better when hearing a new voice.  I like how easy it is for my children to make friends, and how many adults can engage children thoughtfully and lovingly; every National Forest guide has immediately directed their information at child-level, and even the dance shows have a focus for children.

On the other hand: the shaming, the lying, the threats, and the absolute expectation of conformity.  These negatives are so overwhelming that they are deal-breakers in terms of the foundation I want to give my children.

(I could also add in the beatings and physical punishment, which is highly prevalent here.  I don't include it as a top problem only because it is possible to avoid, as people seem to respect that a white woman doesn't want other people to beat her children.  We have also found a school which generally avoids physical punishment, which is rare.)

I work very hard to teach my children honesty, problem solving, personal responsibility, and kindness.  They receive dozens of examples every day of how to NOT do all these things, and I can't shield them from it.  They ask me questions that I have to answer my telling them that I think their teacher or anther respected adult is just plain wrong, which I hate doing. There is much to respect about these people, and I don't want to undermine their authority; I want my children to have role models.  But when they say "but Teacher said this; why did she lie to me?" what else can I do?  It gets to a point where the only true answer is "that is a lie, and I wish she hadn't said that."

To me, the worst is probably the shaming, because it is so prevalent.  Any kind of undesired behavior is quickly shamed, from jokingly to very publicly.  My children are probably each made fun of at least half a dozen times a day.  When Emerson wants to hold my hand and is afraid of leaving me to get on the bus in the morning, even if he is actually getting on the bus properly, if he shows any emotion about it, the bus driver says things like "you promised me you would be a good boy today," "why are you being so naughty this morning again," "big boys don't cry, are you a little baby?", while the children on the bus eagerly look out to see if they have a victim for their favorite taunts: "is Emerson crying again?", "look at little baby Emerson," "Emerson is being like a girl!" and so forth.  Meanwhile, little Buttercup gets told by the helpful cleaning lady, "you are a bad girl" when she drops something or makes a mess, or if she tries to climb up something and slips down, she is warned to not do it again.  At school, most of the formal discipline strategy is shaming: sitting on a high stool or having to eat with your back to the rest of the class, or otherwise being isolated in a very public way.  In this way, the children are naturally taught to shame each other and make this isolation painful.  It fits in very well with the natural meanness, selfishness, and fearfulness of childhood, and in every case I have seen, the children gleefully take the punishment several steps farther than the adults would have, which is silently condoned by the adult authority.

To my older children, the lying is the worst, probably because they are in a very literal phase of life.    The constant little betrayals and infinitely painful to them, and I see how they work back to make the shamings (and the beatings) more powerful.  Some lies are small and seem insignificant; for instance, for a while we happened to be leaving the school at the same time as the two junior teachers, and we followed the same route for part of the way.  The children were delighted at this special time with their teachers, and the teachers indulged them by holding their hands and admiring their little stories (see above, where I appreciate the natural attention that adults bestow on children).  The children invited their teachers home with them and the teachers agreed, but when our paths diverged they went their own way, to my children's shock and disappointment.  On succeeding days, they still insisted they would come home with us, and even when Hibiscus asked "for real? are you lying me?" they replied "I am not lying you! I visit you today!"  Why, why, why bother?  Why make such a big deal out of saying things that aren't true?

Adults also lie to children to get them to stop crying or calm down.  Apparently there is no cultural tolerance for crying here.  I guess that many Americans don't like to hear a child cry either, and maybe I have an unusual attitude towards it; I find that in most cases, a child whose tantrum is ignored will get over it more quickly than a child who gets a lot of fuss.  After I take normal measures to comfort the child, I leave them alone... but if anyone else is around, they will take over for my "lazy" parenting.  When Emerson was upset about not getting something that he couldn't have, our neighbor offered to take him out for ice cream, or go on a special ice cream outing the next day, and would go into details about the outing until he started to pay attention to her instead of his fuss.  When I took her aside and mentioned quietly that we had plans for the next day or something, she waved me off and said she hadn't the slightest intention of actually taking him to get ice cream.  The first day that the older children went to school, Buttercup became very distressed and wanted to put on her shoes and find them, and started to cry when I let her put on her shoes but said we weren't going to get them, and offered alternate activities.  She wasn't ready to think about doing something else, but as soon as I left her alone, the cleaning lady offered to take her for a walk to go get her baabas.  Buttercup quickly stopped crying and allowed Miss S to pick her up and carry her around.  Miss S took her around for a few minutes, distracting her with looking at pretty flowers and fruit, and then brought her back inside.  The distracting walk was a good idea, but in my opinion it didn't need to start with the several-times repeated promise to go to her baabas' school.

But lying takes a much more sinister turn, as well: lying threats are often used for punishment.  When Hibiscus was acting up around a family friend, he turned on her and said very seriously, "your mama may not beat you, but I will.  Stop that, or I will beat you."  I am quite sure he was bluffing and never would have beaten my child.  One day at school, Emerson had gotten seriously dirty in the sand box -- which I don't mind at all, but I sent him to wash hands at the tap before going home.  One of the teachers saw him, and told him if he got that dirty again, she would take off all his clothes and give him a shower in front of all the other children.  He told me after school the next day that he hadn't played in the sand, because he didn't want to be naked in front of the other children.  When children misbehave at school, they are told that they won't be allowed to come back, or that they will be sent home immediately, by themselves.  Once Emerson was taken outside of the school gates and they closed the gates and locked it on him, telling him that he had to go home by himself.  After he screamed and cried, they "forgave" him and let him back in.  It is apparently a common threat that a bogeyman is going to come get a naughty child and take her away, and parents will put a child outside and call the bogeyman.


All this is made worse, because absolute conformity is expected.  There are not alternate ways to do things; individual expression is not appreciated; emotional expression is not allowed.  Any deviation from the norm is immediately rewarding with shaming and threats.  Because the "rules" are so clear, even little children learn them and are quick to pounce on their peers -- even for behavior that they can't manage properly themselves.  Because everyone is unsuccessful at being perfect, they all have been shamed, and they are all quick to jump on the bandwagon to shame and punish someone else.  Little children might be able to reflect the face of God, but they also have an awful lot of intrinsic selfishness!  In my American society, we are generally of a consensus that children shouldn't hit each other, and we teach them this value very strongly in their first toddler playdates, so by school age it is only very out-of-control children who use violence.  But children naturally want to use their bodies to get what they want, so around here middle-sized children are constantly slapping and kicking the younger ones, and physical altercations are common in play.  They also use all kinds of insults, rude noises, and whatever they instinctively feel will get the biggest reaction.

Thus, crying is unacceptable.  Being clumsy is unacceptable.  Being loud is unacceptable.  Getting dirty is inappropriate.  Feeling shy is inappropriate.  Getting hurt and being upset about it is not allowed.  Disobedience is not allowed, nor is getting out of line or talking in class or dozens of other things.  I don't disagree with all these values -- I don't appreciate disobedience or talking in class, either.  But all the ways of being an object of shame also add up to not wanting to be different in any other way, and I can see that is difficult to be more-than-average smart or more-than-average creative, even those are actually values that are strongly appreciated in this society.



In America, pundits say we have "the mommy wars," with parents diverging strongly and sometimes negatively about issues such as stay-at-home-mothers, homeschooling, cry-it-out, co-sleeping, organic food... the list goes on and on.  Whatever you choose, you can find books and bloggers who argue that it's a terrible choice, and a community of mothers who thinks your way is the only reasonable option.  Here, there are no Mommy Wars.  It's more like Mommy Annihilation.  There is exactly one right way to parent, and if you are trying something else, you are either met with stone-cold silence... or of course the old tactics still work well, and the divergent mommy can be publicly shamed.

The school our children attend is trying to incorporate some more modern methods of teaching and ideas about child development into their curriculum and philosophy.  (I think defining "modern" as somewhere in the last hundred years or so... but when was Maria Montessori? it might be 150.)  So they have some elements of child-directed learning and exploration, the idea of children working at their own pace on what they need to know, and some, um, less painfully out-dated methods of discipline.  And they are trying to involve middle-class parents in their children's education, instead of the parents just turning the children over to nannies and television for the whole day.  I am constantly amazed at how most of the parents, who are paying a high price to send their children to this specialized school, and obviously dote on their children, totally ignore all their advice and outreach.  For instance, the teachers are hoping that the children will have some kind of educational toys as home, such as blocks or coloring books.  They were selling toys like this at the Family Day, to make it easier for parents to get them.  I overheard a teacher warmly and gently trying to convince a parent to get a coloring book along with a toy car she had selected, talking about how it is good for their future writing skills, and fine motor, and so forth.  The parents just shrugged and said their child didn't want to hold a crayon, so why have one in the house, and walked away.  Despite all the special activities and personal calls to become more involved, at the special Student-Led Parent Student Conferences yesterday, probably only a quarter of the children actually had a parent show up over the course of the day.

No one has gone to the trouble of paying me for my advice, so instead of just getting ignored, I am told how to behave properly -- told with varying degrees of overbearingness.  I need to put Buttercup in school.  I shouldn't carry Buttercup, she is old enough to walk.  I should beat Emerson when he runs too far, and I should beat Hibiscus when she throws a fit.  I should do everything for Buttercup if she finds it too hard on the first try.  I should feed them this and not that.  They don't need to go to bed that early.  There is no reason to make them nap or do chores if they don't want to.  Buttercup isn't uncomfortable because black children don't mind being squashed like that.

Sometimes I receive this unending stream of instruction in a polite undertone, such as "if it were mine, I would give that child a good beating" or "here in Uganda, we don't carry our children when they are that age."  These are usually delivered with the head respectfully turned away to avoid potentially negative eye contact, but with clear censure and no possibility of an alternate acceptable opinion.  Sometimes the active public shaming is called into play, such as the woman who followed me around the grocery store.  She declared that if a child could request an apple she was too old to walk, and I didn't immediately unwrap Buttercup; so she followed us around, loudly telling me to "put that child down" repeatedly, so even if I didn't obey, she brought an appropriate amount of attention to my poor parenting practices.  With smaller issues, other adults just "fix" the problems I am not addressing properly; they carry Buttercup over stairs I think she can learn to walk, they give the children the things they are fussing for, they threaten or bribe the children into better behavior, they shame them for getting dirty, they tell them what they can eat for dinner or a treat, they give them candy to silence them, they clean up their messes, they carry their backpacks or fix their shoes or give them extras.  The neighbors, strangers on the street, vendors and storekeepers, the children's teachers, the cleaning lady, family friends... unless we stayed in our house and locked the door, there is no way to avoid all the people who are eager and willing to do the "right" thing for my children, and hopefully teach me how to behave as well.

My practice of helping children to learn to be responsible for themselves in an age-appropriate manner, and take consequences for their actions, is totally unimaginable.  One morning I was sitting across the room from Buttercup, who was trying to put a "blanket" over her dolly because she had chosen a large wrap.  She was getting frustrated, so I showed her how to hold the wrap from the edge, but then gave it back to her and sat back down.  She started yelling at me to come do it, and I calmly told her that she could do it herself and reminded her how.  So she told Miss S to come do it for her, and Miss S promptly obliged.  I stopped her, and told her specifically how I thought Buttercup could learn to do this skill on her own, and I wanted her to be able to figure it out.  Miss S seemed to kind of understand, and she obeyed my direct instruction to not do it for Buttercup.  I would have to repeat this a hundred times a day to be allowed to make my own parenting choices -- except most adults anticipate the confrontation, and work behind my back.


With young children, it matters very little what you say, it matters what you do.  Children learn by imitation, and they are always watching.  So I can talk myself blue about being honest, but they see adults lying over and over again.  I can make an inarguable family policy of "no hurting," but as soon as they leave the house they see people hurting each other and getting their way.  I can read them books and tell stories about children being true to themselves and standing up for each other, but they come home and tell me definitely that boys don't get sad, everyone likes the same things, only babies get scared, and their friends deserved getting punished.  I can set it up so my children figure out what the consequences for their own choices are, but someone will come along and save them from getting cold or having to carry a heavy backpack.  Even the choices I am allowed to make -- like not putting Buttercup in school yet -- my children get to see me ridiculed and scolded for.


Every culture, including our own, has positives and negatives.  I wanted Emerson to get to learn about another culture and go to school with local children; I'm not going to put up a fuss that he is picking up values I don't condone as well as becoming less stuck in his American-thinking.  I wanted to know more about my adopted children's birth culture; I'm not going to be aghast that it's different from mine.  I didn't expect my parenting style to be mirrored or even respected while in a foreign country.  Nor do I think that everything about America is perfect -- far from it!  But Mommy Wars or not, at home I have a lot more freedom to parent my children in the way I think best.

And I think it's about time to be getting home.  And when we come back, it will be for a visit, not another stay of months and months... until my children are old enough to discern their own right from wrong, and stand strong in the face of criticism.

Or at least, not scream "you look like a mon-key!!" when they see a little boy crying.

My Children Decide to Be Very Helpful

dinner

Today on the walk home, the kids decided that I wasn't listening to them and I had to go into a Sit when we got home, and I wasn't allowed to get up and they would do all the work and make dinner.  Hm.  Sounds like quite the punishment for a mother, doesn't it?

Hibiscus kept telling me "I'm gonna cook it, I know how for cookin' it, and I am not lyin' you, I am NOT lyin' you!"  I finally had to ask her why she thought I was so suspicious about me thinking she was lying to me!  (I think that was too many pronouns and she couldn't quite figure out the question, though!)  I don't usually let the kids near when I'm cooking, not because I think they can't do it, but because with a tiny house and a lot of children, I'm afraid someone is going to end up stabbed with a knife or getting pushed into a burner.  But they cooked a little bit with Gramma, and I think everyone is getting calmer than they were, so I let them have a try.

The cooking part was pretty sweet.  They decided to make noodles and vegetables, and I set them up at the table so they weren't all on top of each other (and the stove).  They picked out carrots, tomatoes, green beans, and Swiss chard, which isn't exactly what I would have grabbed, but whatever!  I moved my ipad over to the corner of the table to stay in my appropriate sit while keeping an eye on them, and "secretly" made the pasta and cooked sausages.  Hibiscus and Emerson dedicated themselves with great enthusiasm to washing and chopping the vegetables, while Buttercup sat there, snapping beans and eating them.  And everything else Hibiscus chopped.  It is one thing to snack on vegetables while mama chops (which she usually does), but I had to keep moving the bowl to Hibiscus's other side so Buttercup didn't devour the entire dinner before it made it to the stove!  Besides, I thought Hibiscus would throw a fit if she looked down at her bowl of painstakingly chopped tomatoes and found it empty!

Emerson worked very hard on the carrots, which were very dense for a little boy with a dull knife.  Hibiscus made much quicker work of the tomatoes, and she remembered to wash the greens properly -- one at a time, not just a quick splash on the whole bunch.  Hibiscus carefully poured the things one at a time into the pan, although she REALLY wanted to start with the tomatoes and not the firmer vegetables that needed a longer cooking time.  Both of them were intent enough on their work that they accepted my direction about how to do it properly, such as not stabbing things with the point of the knife.  Hibiscus became a scientist about poking vegetables with a fork to see if they were soft enough to add the next ingredient, while Emerson carefully chopped dill with the scissors and cut up three cheese sticks in a bowl.  "But they don't go IN the sauce," he insisted.  "They'll be right here in this bowl and you can put them on TOP if you want."

No one stabbed their sibling.  No one impaled themselves. The younger kids were busy enough with the vegetables that only Hibiscus stirred things on the hot burner, and since she wasn't on Manic Insanity Mode, she actually is old enough to stand on a stool and stir sauce without randomly falling into the gas flame.  There were no trips to the hospital, or even the first-aid kit.  So in that sense, dinner was a success.

But it was an hour and a half late.  Anyone with young kids probably knows what a problem that means, but as I have said, I keep things really consistent, and that means dinner at the same time, so it's a REALLY big deal.  The main problem was when I made them do their before-dinner chores, like they have to do every day, because I don't make exceptions about our routines.  That is, short of aforementioned emergency hospital visits, which do come up on a regular basis, it appears.

There is general chaos with kids running in all directions, but surprising little of the things on the table are jumping into their hands and disembarking at their correct locations.  Hibiscus feels like it is necessary to put a can of rocks on her head and "do" her chores while balancing it.  I tell her to stop, because she's going to drop it, and we'll have rocks all over the house, and she'll have to clean them up.  She glares at me and says she won't drop them, and then she grabs the can and runs off.  I turn around a minute later and she has the can on her head again, and this time, it promptly falls off and rocks go everywhere.  She gives me a shocked look.  I say "I told you that the can would fall off your head, and now it fell off your head.  Pick up the rocks, and then you still need to clear the table."  I don't say things like this because I like to rub in that I was right; I say them because she honestly has no idea of cause and effect, and she really REALLY doesn't realize how her behavior causes any reaction in the world.  She thinks that everything that happens, someone else does TO her.  But we are making progress, because she does pick up the rocks instead of making the argument (violently) that the rocks put themselves on the floor and have nothing to do with her and there is no reason for her to clean them up, because she doesn't need to do chores and would rather play anyways -- which was her position, although not in so many words, for the first few weeks of family life.  Actually, as she cleans up the rocks, I hear her muttering, "Mama said the rocks fall down, and the rocks fall downed."

There is a flurry of arguments about going outside to clean up the outside toys, since it is getting dark.  Each child does a lot of whining and complaining, and some time when the other one is making a bigger fuss, runs out and grabs one or two small things.  Then when I tell them to collect the rest, they announce haughtily that THEY have been working hard and already done their share, and the rest is up to the other sibling.

In the meanwhile, the darkness is actually falling, and the Hibiscus gets REALLY upset about going outside alone.  In the duskiness, they finally get booted out together to make one last trip.

Back to inside chaos.  Hibiscus goes back on her stool and announces that she can't clean up, she is busy doing her WORK of stirring the sauce, she's BUSY.  I have long since put the finishing touches on dinner and turned the stove down.  I tell her that's not her job right now, and when she ignores me I lift her off the stool.  She screams.  Then she dedicates herself to sweeping the floor, which has a lot of vegetable bits but is not really necessary in order to serve dinner.  I'm not sure if she's purposefully avoiding doing what I'm telling her to do to prove she can do things her way, or because sweeping the floor sounds more fun than clearing the table, or because by this point she has the attention span of a moth, and the broom was the nearest lightbulb.  She gets things kind of swept, and as she works on the other side of the table Buttercup gets the small broom and the dustpan, and sweeps it back all over the room again.  Hibiscus turns around and throws up her hands in frustration and tries to explain to Buttercup why not to do that, while Buttercup sets to work on Hibiscus's next pile.  (I think Hibiscus is starting to realize that I don't just enjoy putting Buttercup in the wrap to make her cry; she really does make getting things finished very difficult!)  I offer to put Buttercup up on my back, but both older children protest, so I leave her.  I think they are feeling a great deal of solidarity after sitting together with their joint effort of vegetable chopping.

Meanwhile, there is a little bit of cleaning and clearing happening, slowly.  Emerson has mostly been working at his tired and distractible pace, but gradually making progress, and not making much fuss.  I have helped them with the dinner part of the mess, but I am refusing to do anything about the few items left on the table, because that's their chore every night, and they really are capable of doing it.  Hibiscus starts into the old argument that this-and-such isn't hers, and that one is mama's, and she didn't make the mess and she's not going to clean it up. This is another difficult lesson about being in a family; we help each other out and we work together.  This one is even more difficult for her then realizing that she has made a mess herself and needs to clean it up, but she's been doing much better in the last few weeks.  She puts a few things away with bad grace and some banging -- and I later find them piled on the bed, which is not the point of clearing the table!  

I was helping Buttercup help with something which did not actually make the mess worse, and I find Hibiscus back with the broom, but after a couple wild sweeps she starts dancing around the room with it.  Believe it or not, we have actually encountered the issue of waving brooms and umbrellas and mops and other large objects around above our heads in the living room, and we have a policy about it: brooms go on the floor, or they go away.  Or someone will get hurt.  I remind Hibiscus about this policy, and she screams and darts away from me.  

And promptly WALLOPS herself on the head with the broom.  

Because I was in the vicinity, she wails that I beat her head with a broom. I might have touched the broom to start to take it from her, but all the force was hers, and it is WHY WE DON'T WAVE BROOMS AROUND IN THE FIRST PLACE.

For the next fifteen minutes or so, I potty Buttercup and set out dinner while Emerson sets the table, and Hibiscus screams bloody murder.  She finally decides that Emerson is getting to do a fun table-setting job, or she is getting tired of sitting around screaming, or she remembers that she isn't going to eat unless she does some work.  Our dishes are all stored in two very large sliding drawers under the cabinet, which is nice insofar the kids can reach and be in charge of everything for setting the table.  Hibiscus looks for something in the drawer, and doesn't find it immediately.  She bangs the drawer, and then bangs it again, and then starts to swing her whole weight back and forth on the drawer to get more bangs.

I tell her to stop immediately or she'll break something, and fall.  (And for those of you who might point out that I should stop talking and just go enforce the point, I had my hands full on the other side of the room, and things like this happen much more quickly than it takes to describe them.)  She says she won't stop and she won't break anything and she won't fall.  I am a little out of patience (cough cough, just a little!), and I say quite firmly that I TOLD her that the rocks would fall, and they fell, and I TOLD her that the broom would hit someone, and the broom hit her, and would she STOP BANGING THE DRAWER ALREADY BECAUSE IT WILL BREAK.

She actually stops.

At some point, we actually ate dinner.  It was pretty good, or at least it was fine; I didn't really care by that point.  Emerson didn't eat any of the sauce he had helped to make (that theory is totally bogus when confronted by the pickiness of my son!), but he did eat the six green beans he had prepared for himself. He didn't even put any of his carefully prepared dill on his noodles, although he was very just about distributing the tiny chunks of cheese.  Hibiscus was horrified that she couldn't see any tomatoes in the sauce despite cutting up lots of tomatoes, and didn't quite believe me when I try to explain how tomatoes kind of melt, especially when clearing the table takes an hour or two and the tomatoes are cooking the whole time.

Isn't it wonderful when the kids have the motivation to take over some of their mother's chores, and mama can put up her feet while the kids prepare a simple dinner?

Maybe in another year or two.  Or three.  Five?   I think if I really want assistance, I need to wait until Buttercup is old enough to just do the whole thing herself!

At the Pool

Discipline

We were at the pool today, and I have a chance to observe that the Ugandan "toolbox" of parental discipline does indeed contain something other than beatings, or threatened beatings.

A little boy, maybe around 4, was fussing and crying about something.  I heard his mother scolding him and telling him to stop it, and threatening a beating.  Maybe she didn't feel like bothering or felt like it was too public a place, because she went on to Option 2.

She brought the boy back to the edge of the pool, and told everyone that he was being naughty and Shame On Him.  She invited all of the children to join in, and everyone in the pool cheerfully started yelling "shame on you! shame on you!" to the little boy.  Some of them expanded on the idea and told him he was a baby and he looked like a monkey, while the mother praised and encouraged the additional insults.  After a while he stopped crying, and the mother let him wander away, but several of the children were so excited they kept yelling "shame on you!" at random times.

I went over to speak to Emerson about it, not sure about how he was feeling.  Emerson explained "oh, it's not a big deal, he's just crying and there's no reason for him to be crying, so they are making him stop."

Sometimes it's really hard to maintain my cross-cultural open-mindedness.  Really, really hard.  In fact, I might be all out.

Mama Manages to be a Big Girl, plus Monday Post Script

These last couple weeks have been the perfect storm of little things, designed to take a tired, frazzled mother and wear her down to the very end.  I have not managed to hold out.  When I came here, I put the whole trip in God's hands and could find that inner peace again, even when things got difficult.  I guess I am finding that works better for large problems than small ones!  It just seems like it is one thing after another, each perfectly manageable on their own, but each taking some of my energy, and ending up requiring more energy than I possibly can summon.  

There was Hibiscus's fall, and then I got a cold, and then Emerson got sick and his asthma flared up in the middle of the night and he was home from school.  And my fall.  And I didn't really get better, and Emerson didn't really got better, and Buttercup got sick, and Hibiscus got really grumpy about cleaning her wound every day.

And I kept having trouble with my internet, which after spending a day chasing down answers on the phone, it became obvious that someone random was using my internet data -- as in, ALL my internet data, and I had to keep buying more.  I had to go to the store downtown to reset my account, but I'll have to go to their main office to resolve the whole issue.

And Buttercup woke in the night with croup, and in the morning looking bleary, and I cancelled everything for a couple days to avoid spreading the croup.

And a package finally arrived with some practical hot-weather wraps that I ordered from Europe a month ago, but the post office decided that since there were THREE wraps then obviously I am a business selling wraps, and they charged taxes accordingly.  Apparently they don't want anyone doing business in this country, because the taxes are about 60% of the total cost of the wraps, which is really really way too high.  So I'll need to get the paper from Miss B (who owns the PO box) and go downtown to the post office and argue with them.  The whole thing is preposterous, because everyone laughs at me with my long European style wraps instead of the short, normal, African ones, and anyone no one here could afford to pay those prices, especially with 60% VAT, never mind adding on profit if I actually were a business!

And I've continued to be sick, and Buttercup has continued to be sick, and Emerson is only very slowly getting better, and Hibiscus is trying really hard to be sick too.  She was taking antibiotics for her wound when we all got sick, and I am guessing that helped push it away for her.  So we've all been to the doctor this week, and then I went back the next day for more tests, which ends up taking most of the day.  I don't have anything they can figure out, but I have a couple minor, recurring infections popping back up; ones I know how to treat, but are an extra annoyance.

With three kind of sick children, it is pretty much guaranteed that someone will have trouble falling asleep, and someone will wake up in the middle of the night coughing or peeing or crying, and someone different will be feeling perfectly fine and bounce out of bed at 6 am.  

Just in case I happened to take a moment to remember that we are actually here for the purpose of legally adopting two children, it turns out that there is bad news in that direction too.  Our case is filed, but there are no judges hearing cases.  So it's sitting there, doing nothing, and all our time dealing with tropical rainy-season illnesses is not actively getting us any closer to actually leaving the tropics.

Speaking of the rainy season, it's still hot on most days, but it also has a period of an hour or so when it pours cats and dogs, usually sideways.  About 22.5 hours a day, this doesn't matter, but there is one hour when I have to walk to pick the kids up from school and walk home again.  That's always an interesting gamble.  Also, it seems like on most days we either have power out for most of the day, or the water is out.  The last two days have been neither: two days ago, our gas tank for the stove ran out, and yesterday, the water came out brown.  Gotta keep things exciting.

(And lest I seem too impatient with these country-wide problems, our whole apartment building has back-up power, except for our little apartment.)

AND, there are even a couple of disasters which I don't want to write about publicly!  Imagine that!  One of those has totally taken over our day today.

Did I mention that I'm kind of sick?  And one of the problems is my tummy feeling off, so I haven't been eating that much.  Which isn't a big problem when you're sick for a day or two, but after two weeks, I think not eating much is contributing to my lack of energy.  Our cleaning lady even said "you used to be fat, but now every day you are getting smaller and smaller."  (Which I find highly amusing on several counts, actually!)

So, this would be a good time for the kids to be well-behaved, or at least... kind of tired and lethargic or something.  Right?  Not reality, I'm sure you will be surprised to hear.

Buttercup is busy exploring her toddlerhood, which appears to involve a lot of screaming and defiance.  There's suddenly been a rash of getting things removed, as she's warned to not throw toys and then looks at me and throws the toy, or to not play with her food and carefully drops lumps of it on the floor.  The most noticeable development, however, is the screaming.  Not any words, just high-pitched and loud whenever she doesn't get what she wants.  Such as after the thrown toy and smooshed food are removed.  Or when she plays with knives or cell phones, or has to divide treats with her brother and sister, or has to leave the sand box at their school.  Or when she thinks it's time for a chapati, but the neighbors have not finished making chapatis yet.  SCREEEEEEEEAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!

I'm glad she's coming out of her shell, and I just rejoice to see an actual personality emerging from the shell-shocked, passive child I met this June.  But can't she manage to be a "good girl" by Ugandan standards for just a few more weeks?

Emerson is doing okay.  He's a lot less explosive and emotional than he has been for most of his 4-year-old year, which I genuinely appreciate.  Maybe it's being sick, but he's still going from "can I have this please?" to "noOOOOOooooo I WAAAAAaaaaant it nooooOOOOOWWWW!!!" in about 1.2 seconds flat.  And baths!  If he would just get in the bath when he needs to get in the bath, and consent to having his hair washed when it's dirty, my life (that is, my bedtime routine!) would get so much easier!  This is one of those struggles that I have a little bit of trouble seeing the point of, given that when the debate is Emerson vs. Mama in Whether It Is Actually Bathtime, the score is currently at Mama: 1003 vs Emerson: 0.  Um, can we just do it and get on with life now?

And Hibiscus.  My dear Hibiscus.  

On Monday after school she was just plain rude.  Also, it was somewhere around there that we came up with a new Family Policy, which is Teeth Will Be Brushed in Order From Youngest To Oldest, No More Arguing.  Which of course meant that Hibiscus had to spend the week dashing to get ready and sit on the toilet and call "I'm ready, mommy!" to try and circumvent the new rule.  The next night we added another layer to the rule, which was And Baths Will Happen From Oldest To Youngest, In Opposite Order Of Teeth Brushing.  You would think that might make her happy, but she sulked about that one too, and kept trying to insist that it was actually Emerson's turn.  (Buttercup doesn't take baths at night, she takes them when I do when the kids are in school, although if I leave her and turn my back, she will just climb right in to whatever bath is available.)

On Tuesday after school, she was rude, and after various warnings and short Sits, she hit me, so she had to go into the bedroom for a 10 minute Sit in her bed.  After quite a struggle, she decided she would stay in the bedroom, but she would spend her time on MY bed, not hers.  I was trying to make dinner and deal with other meltdowns, so I didn't want to physically force her into her bed as long as she wasn't bothering anyone, but I told her she couldn't come out until she had spent 10 minutes in the correct place.  So naturally, she sat in my bed and the bathroom until it was time to put dinner on the table.  I reminded her every few minutes that she would miss dinner if she didn't get her Sit finished, so she finally started it during dinner-time routine, and needless to say, didn't get to sit down with everyone and sing the blessing, and was very upset.  And Emerson had to clear and set the table by himself.

Now I will just take this opportunity to say, I don't really CARE which bed she spends her Sit in.  I hate nitpicking and fighting battles like this.  She was quiet and content, and that was what was important to me.  But my instinct is that in order to keep us all in order, I have to be absolutely clear and inflexible.  When she gets destructive to herself and other people, she has to calm down in her bed.  That's reasonable.  She doesn't get to change around some of my directions in order to suit herself; little children don't need that much power in this family.

Again, I could be wrong.  Some parenting philosophies suggest that by giving children choice in the things that don't matter to you, they'll be more willing to follow your directions in other things.  So maybe by saying "choose your quiet time calm-down spot," she would stay there.  But my feeling is just that Hibiscus and Emerson are Absolutely Black and White kinds of children.  If they get to choose where to have the calm-down time, next they'll be figuring out what else they get to be in control of.  The point is, once they have demonstrated being totally out of control, like hitting people, they don't get any more choices.  I make them, and my decision is one's own personal bed.  Actually, she has a little bit of choice, because I say they can read in bed, so she can pick any of the books on the bedside table, or play with dolls or something quietly in bed, but not go across the room to pick out more things.  That's what I consider an appropriate child-level decision at that point. 

Then on Wednesday, the kids were playing outside and Emerson came running in, eyes wild, to tell me that Hibiscus had gone outside the gate.  Our apartment is completely walled in, and has a caretaker/guard 24 hours a day, so they are pretty safe playing outside even when I can't directly see them.  Luckily, Emerson is at that literal-minded, rule-enforcing kind of age, and he rushes to tell me whenever he sees anyone else breaking the rules (as does Hibiscus, for that matter).  I don't know how far up the road the guard would have let her travel, as he was there, but I snatched her up and put her in her bed until dinner.  I said going out the gate without permission was a No Second Chances kind of rule, and I updated our Family Policies to reflect that!

The other thing about sending her to bed until dinner?  She actually does really well there.  By the end of the school day, she's exhausted and manic, but she actually calms down and will read and sing to herself for long periods of time.  Having her audience of siblings removed takes away most of her desire for showing off, and I'm sure that choosing what to do with no outside pressure or imitation is very healthy for her.  I wish she would take that rest time without being forced, and thus becoming resentful towards me!

Thursday we did an errand after school, so it was a even-shorter afternoon, and she managed to not get into trouble.  I think.  Except for general rudeness.

It was somewhere around here that half the lights in our house just plain stopped working, whether or not the power is on, including the light by the dinner table and all the lights in the bedroom.  This means we have to put on pajamas and read books by candlelight, since the kids have also broken our one portable light.  Can you imagine how many arguments we can get into about the candles?

Friday..... you know, I started writing this on Saturday morning, when I actually remembered Friday evening, but now it's Monday and I have forgotten the specifics of the day.  It went something like this.... I thought about accepting the neighbors' invitation to dinner, but realized that it wouldn't be served until the time my children were usually falling asleep, and they just could not physically and emotionally manage that, so we would go eat lentil soup in our own house.  That was not a popular decision with the lilliputian crowd.  

Hibiscus was rude.  Buttercup screamed.  Emerson stormed.  Hibiscus had terrible table manners, and I had to keep threatening to take away her plate and she'd immediately reform until she thought I wasn't looking (or just plain forgot; "do not eat avocado with your feet" is a new concept around here).  Buttercup imitated the terrible table manners.  Hibiscus was more rude.  I had to take away both their plates.  Hibiscus was rude.  Buttercup screamed.  Emerson went on and on about how good he was being.  Hibiscus was rude.  Time for bed.  Hibiscus refused to do any of the normal things she was supposed to do.  Emerson wouldn't get in the bath, and then wouldn't wash his hair.  Buttercup screamed.  In the 45 seconds it takes me to wrap up Buttercup and put her out of mischeif-potential, the other kids got water all over the bathroom.  Hibiscus was rude.  Hibiscus was rude and uncooperative to the point I said I wasn't going to help her brush her teeth, she had to do it herself.  She wouldn't do anything.  I started reading books without her.  She sulked and finished up.

And I don't even remember what the last incident was.  She hasn't been screaming at me until she vomits at bedtime for quite a while, so it was something slightly different.  I think she kept picking up other books and "reading" them rather loudly while I was trying to read to the other children, or maybe she was singing, or maybe it was some other kind of noise.  But eventually I told her she was too loud and she had lost the privledge of being with everyone else and bothering them, and I picked her up by the elbows and put her on the stairs from the bedroom to the bathroom.  She started to scream, but I warned her that she was going into the other room if she did that.  I'm wondering how out-of-control her behavior actually is, because it turns out she can usually stop when the alternative is going in the other room!  So she sat on the stairs and sulked.

And I finished the last book and tucked the other children in and said their blessings.  I say each blessing individually, snuggled up next to their little bodies, and I thank God for the strengths of that child and praise them for the good I saw in them that day, talk about understanding the struggles they have had (Emerson usually wants to talk back and forth with me, but Hibiscus just lets me tell God about how hard I know her day must have been), and pray for the kind of person I want them to grow into -- a specific example of using their natural powers for good, like Hibiscus's determination; or balancing out what they need, like strength and confidence in her individuality for Buttercup; or an adult manifestation of childish virtues, like Emerson taking care of his little sister.  I also pray for myself and that God will help me be a good mother for that child, again using specifics from the day.  I hope the children hear the message that I know that I'm not perfect and I am working and praying to improve myself, even as a mother and an adult.  So, no matter how awful our day has been, I try to end on that loving, thankful, and forward-looking note.  Although I still have to do the children in a specific order!

After everyone else was finished and had their turn, I invited Hibiscus to come back into bed.  She ignored me.  I did the last tucking in and smoothing down, and invited her again.  She still ignored me.

This is a long chapter, but do you remember the beginning?  About the internet pirates, and being unable to get my package, and being sick, and everyone else being sick, and not being able to sleep through the night, and the paperwork getting stalled out, and still being sick?

I was so tempted to say "goodnight, Hibiscus," and walk out of the room.  I stood there, almost doing it.

But I was a big girl.  I went over and took her hand, and she wouldn't look at me, but she stood up and walked with me, and lay back down in bed.  I tucked the blanket around her.  I snuggled up next to her, even though I was so frustrated I really just wanted to slap her.  I stroked her hair, even though she's been rejecting my caresses by telling me it hurts whenever I touch her hair.  And I said her blessing, and I thanked God for her life, and I thanked God for bringing her into our family.

**************

And that was what I planned to write when I started this post on Saturday morning.  And then Saturday got worse, it got way way worse, and it was all Hibiscus.  She did some things that went from "this is really annoying" into "this is affecting lives," that I'm going to protect her privacy by not writing about.  With some space to consider it, I know in my head that it's not out of the realm of normal for a child of her age and her background, and I can't expect her to behave better than her life so far has prepared her to behave.  I think that her overall actions have shown that she wants desperately to be in a loving parent-daughter relationship, she just doesn't know how to do it, or doesn't trust herself enough yet.  She also is learning and gradually changing her behavior, and I can tell she's listening to me.  And most of all, she's a little bitty girl!  She's only six years old.  She has so much time to grow and change.

But meanwhile, I'm all alone by myself.  I have no one to advise me.  No one to take the kids for an hour if I'm exhausted.  No chance to get an extra hour of sleep on Saturday morning.  When she's getting sassy to me, there's no one to invite her over for a game of Crazy 8's and get her thinking of something else; it just escalates.  And with three children, and school taking up most of the day (and all Hibiscus's energy), I don't even have a chance to play bonding games or do Wilburger's brushing technique or have conversations about her birth parents and why she is living with me.  I can keep them clean and fed and enrolled in school, and that's about it.  I feel like treading water is the most I can hope for, and meanwhile she's caught in the rip tide off by herself.

And this weekend, I had had it.  Some people read these posts and praise me for my patience or super-mom-ness.  I'm not that spectacular, I'm just a naturally calm person, who doesn't show much of my emotions, including being upset or angry.  But I finally reached the end of my rope.  This weekend, I actually yelled at the children.  Multiple times.  I don't think I have ever raised my voice beyond snippy and irritated with my family -- not because I'm a saint, but because I'm not a yeller.  Well, I did it.  And I was so mad at Hibiscus in a deep way, that everything she did irritated me and I blamed her for everything.  I just couldn't stop.  And it spilled over onto the other children... I got mad at Buttercup for wetting her pants and at Emerson for telling me about Hibiscus hitting him, which are stupid, stupid things to punish a child for!  I just wanted them all away from me! 

So I tried to not say anything at all.  They went outside to play after lunch, and I let them have cookies and I didn't make them come take a nap.  If they weren't bothering me and we weren't fighting, I didn't care.  But it didn't really help; I was just as irritated with them, and blaming with Hibiscus, when they came back in.

And once they were in bed, no one was even on Skype, so I couldn't have even have a conversation.  So I thought about wraps and what my favorite colors were.  And I didn't feel like I could ever come back to writing this, at least without changing the name, because I felt like I had lost any claim to rising above anything.

And now it's Monday, and I'm trying to start the week fresh.  I think I'm not very sick any more, and I'm going to hire a car and try and get a bunch of errands done tomorrow.  I was going to do a couple things today, but Buttercup was extra tired from missing her nap yesterday, which turned out to be just as well since it started to pour -- and I have a little chance to think.  The children are back in school, and Buttercup is snuggled on my back, sleeping in a soft woolie wrap.  And my parents are coming on Friday!  I've come back to try and write about the week, and that made me think about this awful weekend.

And I realized, that I wasn't quite as bad as I felt I was.  Maybe I wasn't always acting like a big girl, but at least a medium-sized one.  The children were actually fed and bathed and got their homework done, which is more than some families manage (as Hibiscus and Buttercup can attest with their lives).  I managed to stop talking instead of saying some of the mean things I wanted to say.  I didn't hit or spank or slap anyone.  

And I still said all three blessings every night.  I thanked God for each of these children.