Disciplining a sensitive child

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Forum -> Parenting our children

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amother

Bisque

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:14 am

If you have a difficult child who is ultra sensitive, how would you attempt to correct bad or troubling behavior both at home and at school? She takes everything very personally and very literally.

FranticFrummie

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:29 am

Read up about "natural consequences", and how they need to be tied to the action. For example, stealing would mean going to the person, returning the item, and apologizing.

A lot of it depends on how old the child is. Try turning things around. Ask her what she thinks an appropriate consequence would be. Sensitive children are often extremely intelligent. You'd be surprised how much you can accomplish just by talking things through.

Once DD did something wrong, and I asked her what her consequence should be. She said "Ground me for a week" (which is pure torture for her.) I said "Wow, that's pretty harsh. You really think a whole week is appropriate?" She said "yes", and I said "Well, how about 3 days, and you can work off 2 of them if you do XYZ chores around the house?" She agreed that was more than fair, and was very happy to accept the situation. She was only 7 at the time!

amother

Bisque

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:33 am

What if the child's father uses threats and harsher punishments than I would use? And what if I can't stop him?

FranticFrummie

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:39 am

amother wrote:

What if the child's father uses threats and harsher punishments than I would use? And what if I can't stop him?

That's a whole different issue. You could suggest parenting classes that you take together, or couple's therapy to get on the same page.

Harshness NEVER works. He needs to separate his emotions from the situation, and focus on what results he wants to get. Does he want to be "right" and yell, or does he want to see progress in the child's behavior? He can't have both. Until he sees that, things are not going to improve, and the child's spirit will be crushed.

Your obligation is to protect your child, so you need to be proactive and start looking into parenting classes or therapy for both of you. You have to do everything you can to get DH on board, and get him out of repeating his own childhood (I'm assuming his parents were harsh with him.)

amother

Bisque

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:45 am

Thanks. That's what I was hoping to hear. I asked the question as if I was the mother. I was actually the child. It was years ago and you're right, my soul is still crushed. Not only because of my father's actions but also because of my mother's failure to protect me. She was afraid of him too, I think. She still probably is. She sides with him almost always, even when I'm 99% sure she'd act very differently if not for him. This is very difficult to work through but I'm starting to see that I might need to if I ever want to truly move on. (See my orher thread in the emotional health forum called "guilt and fear.")

I hope this wasn't too misleading. I just needed to hear what my mother might have heard if she ever spoke up and asked for advice when I was young.

FranticFrummie

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 5:48 am

amother wrote:

I hope this wasn't too misleading. I just needed to hear what my mother might have heard if she ever spoke up and asked for advice when I was young.

I understand why you started the thread this way. Sometimes reframing things from the outside is a powerful form of therapy. I use it with my clients all the time.

I hope you find your refuah soon. Hug

Ruchel

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 7:02 am

Ouch. We don't know if the father us "bad" or simply has a different style. More lenient is not always better. The Gemara certainly doesn't think so. It's ok to disagree with your husband but discuss it in private, show a united front, and different doesn't mean defective.

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