My darling three year old Bella has recently been practicing the art of pushing Mummy’s buttons and as a result of this new found hobby, I’ve been practicing the art of deep breathing and fighting the urge to crack open a bottle of wine at 10am. She’s starting to show off in front of people, you know the kind of behaviour that as a parent you wish the ground will just open and swallow you up. She’s particularly worst at mealtimes.
Whilst all the other children (Flo included) sit nicely at the table and eat their food. Bella is too busy whining that she doesn’t like what has been served, even though it was her favourite meal two days ago, or she persistently annoys her dining neighbour by poking them or sticking her foot in their face. No matter how many warnings I give, she just carries on. Even the dreaded threat of “no pudding” doesn’t work.
She has never been a foodie but when we are at home, she will sit and eat nicely. I totally get that a child of her age will constantly push the boundaries, and it’s a very normal part of their learning process, but it’s getting to the stage, where enough is enough. I need to install the balance of testing the boundaries but also having that respect for myself, my hubby as well as any other grown up.
Operation no more Mrs Nice Mummy who dishes out way too many chances, has officially launched. I’ve always given Bella the opportunity to redeem herself. I don’t want to see her miss out on things or get upset but her testing behaviour will only get worse if I don’t toughen up now.
I’m going to introduce a peg system, they use it at Bella’s Pre-School and it seems to work really well. The peg system is basically a form of a reward chart but it’s very visual. You reward good behaviour by putting the peg up a notch and for bad behaviour the peg goes down into the red. When the peg gets to the top of the chart, you reward the child with a prize.
I know it’s effective with Bella, because it really hits home if her peg doesn’t go up and if it does go up it literally is the best day of her life. I’m hoping that eventually just the threat of her peg going in the red, will be enough to snap her out of her bad behaviour. Watch this space, I’m going to start the peg system tomorrow, so I’ll write another blog soon for an update.