To discipline or not to discipline?
A couple of days ago I had an argument with my sister. She often comes over on weekends with my six year old neice (her daughter) to visit. My neice is a little wild one. She runs from room to room, touching everything, goes under the living room table, when she eats she doesn't sit still and spreads crumbs everywhere, if she doesn't like whatever food I have at home she'll complain and her mother will go and buy her something else. Now, is it just me or is there a discipline problem here? I've told my sister before that she should be more strict with her daughter but she thinks it's abuse if you smack your child when they do something wrong. She will tell her "Stop it" or "Don't do that", but her daughter does not listen or respect her at all or any other adult for that matter. And I would worry if I was her when she enters her teen years if she doesn't get control now! So anyway, now and then I would tell her that we're not going to be so lenient with our child, and that we're going to discipline him just like our parents did with us. And though we didn't like it and we thought it was mean, we appreciate it now as adults because we have good manners and we learned to take responsibility for our behavior. Well, she took it to mean that I'm saying that I'm going to have a "perfect" child. When her daughter crawled under the dining table for the 100th time she said, "Oh, I forgot you're not going to have any problems because you're going to have a perfect child!". Very sarcastically. I got pissed and said a few things I shouldn't have said but I was tired of her saying it. I explained to her calmly that everyone is different and have different ways of raising their child. She said goodbye and left quietly. I haven't argued with my sis in quite a while and I feel bad about it. But I guess when it comes to parenting, it's a very touchy subject. No parent wants to hear that they're not doing a good job. I learned my lesson. I'll keep my mouth shut and hope she will too.