Raising the Strong Willed Child and Managing to Keep Your Sanity

I'm still working on keeping the sane part of my blog post here.  Let me say I love my daughter.  I can't imagine my life without her.  Though there are times I wish I had a vacation from her.  Most recently I have been feeling this way.

I always said I was so blessed that we missed the terrible twos.  I had always heard that the age of 2 was so hard and that kids were so bad at this age.  Parents were tearing out their hair when their children turned 2.  She would say the occasional "no" but otherwise was a fairly good child.

All of a sudden she has hit four and all this has changed.  I hear phrases like, "No!" and "I don't want to."  Not in a normal speaking voice either.  I hear this at the top of her lungs.  The most challenging thing we are dealing with right now is expressing anger.  She gets angry or frustrated with me because I have told her that she can't have something she wants or she can't do something she wants and she lashes out.  She will come up to me and hit me.  This is not good.

I am not one that doesn't believe in spankings.  I do believe this.  The punishment has to fit the crime and spanking is a last resort for something really serious.  Also spanking should always be on the butt, never anywhere else.  Think of me what you want but this is what I believe in.  I was spanked as a child and I can count the number on my fingers it is that low.  I was not spanked for everything.  I was spanked when I ran across the street without my mother telling me it was alright to cross and almost got hit by a car.  I'm sorry but I think that was justified.  

Now back to my point here.  Usually what I do with my child is take stuff away.  This seems to work pretty well. It gets the point across.  Also I don't think I can spank a child when disciplining them for hitting me.  It just teaches them that hitting is alright.  At this moment she hasn't been listening so she doesn't get to watch her educational shows on t.v. until Friday.  If she keeps being bad she won't get to camp out on Friday.  (Camping out is sleeping in the living room instead of in her bedroom.)  I will keep taking things away until she learns.

I don't think that this is going to solve my whole problem.  This is what we're trying.  First we are rewarding good behavior.  She's good she gets something special.  That way she's being encouraged to behave the correct way.  Also I read in an article that strong-willed children want to be independent and do things on their own.  So I let her help me with the cooking by pouring things in.  I let her help me with the dishwasher.  I am going to start to give her more tasks.  Something small but something she can be in charge of.

So far it seems to be working and I am wanting less and less to go outside and do a primal scream.  Will these things work for everyone.  I don't know.  You have to figure out what works for your child and for you.