7:30am Mia's Bathroom. "Come on Mia, time to get out of the tub" I say as I walk towards her with a towel waiting to cover her up. "Ahhh" she shrieks. She has been very touchy lately, her first reaction to any transition of activites is to throw a fit. I knelt down to put the towel around her and she slapped me in the face, raking her fingernail across my eye.
Immediately my mind flashed to our behavioral therapy, the work we've been doing to show her that she is not in control. I turned her around and slapped her hard on the butt. She was stunned into silence which lasted only a second before the tears welled up in her eyes. "That's right, you got spanked" I said looking into her eyes. I wasn't sure if I should have said more. She looked at me as if to say "what now" I may have been looking at her the same way. I wasn't sure what happened next. The thought crossed my mind to apologize but I wasn't sorry. She slapped me in the face and all the times before when I tried to look meaningfully in her eyes and forcefully tell her to stop hitting me all just prompted more hitting from her.
I sent her to her room. She stopped crying within a minute and began jumping on her bed in anticipation of the movie she assumed I would put on her tv. I decided that I was right to spank her in this instance, she should know that if you hitting has real consequenses. I told myself I would not use spanking for any of her other infractions. I could handle them by reasoning with her.
This afternoon, we were outside doing yardwork. Mia loves to pick the leaves off weeds, flowers, trees and bushes. Usually I don't mind, until those leaves happen to belong to my neighbors plants. After the fifth time of telling her "Mia, get out of their yard" I grabbed her hand and lead her up to her room. She promptly started kicking her door as hard as she could. This is one of her go to moves, she knows we hate it. She smiles when we come in the room to hold her arms and sternly say "STOP KICKING THE DOOR!!!" Three times I went up to tell her and three times she ignored me. On the third time, I opened her door, pulled down her diaper and spanked her again. That's when the kicking stopped.
Is this the only real behavioral therapy I should have been doing this whole time? I have told myself since I was a kid that I wouldn't spank my kids. I hated how easily it could be abused and it seemed to be more about power and humiliation than discipline. Have I just been making it harder on myself? Or am I taking the easy way out now?
