Another day, another lesson learnt.

Ask me any day what I think the right way to parent is, and I'll start ranting about how I hate Tizzie Hall, and how smacking is abusive, and how I don't believe in time outs. Which is true. That's how I roll. I believe only in positive and gentle and respectful parenting.

Then ask me how I parent, and I'll admit that it's a work in progress. Coming from a home where there was smacking, time outs and often yelling, it's a hard cycle to break. Sometimes I lose my shit and yell (possibly more often than sometimes?) and occasionally I'll smack a butt as it walks past me. Then there have been the times when I've snapped and there's been screaming, smacking, crying and sometimes even a door slammed or something thrown (oh yes, thrown. Don't ask me about the crockery incident). Immediately, I feel bad. Most of the time I'll calm down and we'll talk about it. Not always, but most of the time. I believe this is the best way to deal with moments where you lose control. It teaches them that it's not okay, but it happens and shows them the correct way to deal with it.

The other day I was so sick and tired of my 8.5 year old's bad attitude. Getting him to be kind and considerate was out of the question, and all I was getting was eye rolling and nastiness. So I sent him to his room.

I don't usually use the room thing unless it's a time out for me. I believe that sending a child who is upset/angry etc to their room doesn't teach them anything. Are they sitting in their room saying "oh I wish I hadn't of hit my brother. I shouldn't have done that and I won't do it again"? No. Chances are they are in there thinking about the 100 ways to get back at their horrible parent who they hate with a passion, or wishing they'd hit him out of sight so they could claim self defence.

This is proof it does not work.

This says "Dik haed". Next to the word mum. Nice.

Was he in his room thinking about why he should drop the bad attitude? Hell no! He was in there thinking how much of a dick head his mother was, clearly. I love how he wrote Ashton's name, because then maybe I'd think Ashton did it and not him. Nice try, but I know what 8 year old hand writing looks like and it's a lot different to 4 year old handwriting.

What he's yet to learn is I prefer the term "bitch". Plenty of life left for him to realise that though.