“I hope that someday you have kids just like you...”

I am sure that my Mom was not the only one to utter the dreaded phrase that as a teenager I thought was insane! I was a good, she was the problem not me! Or so we thought as teenagers.
Now I am a Mom and I have a 2 and a half year old who is JUST LIKE ME! She is pretty much a mini-me at TWO! And I am scared of the teenage years. But at the same time, I know that she is like me, attitude and all, so I know how to deal with it because she thinks just like me. Which drives husband nuts because we both see the loopholes in the things he says, and all he can do is sit there and try to figure out what just happened.
So here I am with the mini-me and she is 2, and sadly I can’t remember what I was like at 2, I know that I didn’t like the water until we went to Florida and then you couldn’t get me out of the water with a crowbar, and I am still that way, as is Lil’ Miss Thing. I know that I always wanted to be in charge (I’m still that way, I blame my extreme Type A personality) and I was (and am) always right!
How do you get a 2 year old to listen?
I googled this question and got results of 428,000,000 in just 0.26 seconds! So I know that I am not alone in this quest for listening. I have seen answers from ignore them, use a timeout, count, use a naughty spot, walk away, and even the occasionally suggestion of spanking *gasp*, now I am sure those people didn’t live in California where the government there has decided that they are going to try to control all of your parenting from conception to graduation and beyond.
In our 2.5 years as parents we have employed the naughty spot concept, ignoring her, walking away, timeouts, counting and *gasp* spanking (over her nappies of course so I am sure she barely felt anything since she kept on doing what she was doing without a second thought).
But, at the same time I know that she is like me, and so I think back to what was used on me, yelling, spanking - with or without a wooden spoon depending on who was providing the punishment.
So, now we are using a little bit of everything depending on the crime...And we will adjust our punishment delivery system as we go.Sphere: Related Content