Parenting is hard!

Seriously.

Parenting is HARD!! How do you know if you are doing it right? You never do. You always question, but you have to live with your decisions and hope your kid comes out for the best. That's a crappy feeling. I always saw kids at the store or church acting bratty, and I would be like, "My kid will never act like that." Hubby would nod his head in agreement. But here's the hard part, how do you actually ensure your kid won't act like that all on their own? Enter discipline... another tricky word. When you don't have kids actually present, it's pretty easy to agree on how you will manage your imaginary kids with your significant other. However, when your real kid starts acting according to their own personality and temperment, it's not quite so black and white. "Well, she's just acting out, because I rotated to night shift" or "she's just really tired." To discipline or not to discipline, that becomes the question. And I promise you will disagree more often than not. When Stinka first came home, hubby would take it easy on her, I would be the disciplinarian, then I would get mad at hubby for not being stricter on her and for making me be the bad guy. A few weeks/months later, hubby disciplined her and I got mad, because I felt that he was being too strict on her. It took months later before we found a happier medium. It's not perfect, but it's much better. Poor Stinka had to come along for the ride. Like I said, this parenting stuff is hard! Anyway, I'm finding that consistency is best. Again, this is easy in theory. Sometimes you are just too tired to care that she lied about eating a snack. But NOPE! You are the parent, and you must be consistent. Otherwise, you are sending your child mixed signals. Sometimes, you are actually looking forward to [insert activity here]. But you told your child, that if they don't swallow the food in their mouth, they can't go to [said activity]. They chew for 30 minutes while you are in the parking lot of the [activity's location], and you have to turn around and go home (while the food is still in their mouth). (That was a BAD day for us!!) Sometimes I end up feeling like half my days off work are spent with Stinka in timeout, and me explaining to her why lying is bad or why she must swallow her food. But I'm telling you what, I think it's paying off!! The gaps between timeout days are getting longer and longer. The other day at school, Stinka corrected a little girl who said, "yeah" to a teacher. She said, "We say, 'yes, ma'am.' Not yeah." And the ultimate testimate to success was today. Stinka said, "Mama, can I get a big muffin." "Sure baby." "...So I can share with you." .... Gosh I love this kid!!

It's okay though. I know that tomorrow or the next day, she'll lie about something (washing her hair, making her bed, leaving her backpack in the car, etc., etc.), or throw a fit about something ridiculous, and we'll be talking in timeout again, but I know it's sinking in :)

(FYI: Stinka's refusal to swallow food has nothing to do with liking vs disliking food or any physical problems. She has been checked out and cleared. It's a psychological issue that has to do with control. I could probably dedicate an entire blog post to this issue. We have tried various methods of correcting it. We are dealing with it our own way, and I do not want suggestions on correcting it. Her lying stems from a survival mechanism from the orphanage. She lies and tells you what you want to hear, not the truth. She did it to avoid trouble. So, yes, we have to punish her when she lies about something simple like eating a snack. We want her to know that we want the truth even if she thinks we won't like it. We have to praise her when she tells us the truth... even if the truth is that she broke something, lol.)