A Question of Discipline

Our eldest child has entered the "Terrible Twos".  Lucky us.  It is as advertised, although I imagine it has been fairly easy for us given that Matthew is still typically very well behaved.  He rarely goes out of his way to misbehave, save the drawing on walls, tables and toys and the occasional punching of a four-year old stranger.  The kid probably should not have been all up in Matthew's business.

The most common form of "Terrible Two" behavior from our young lad is in the form of pseudo-tantrums.  They are pseudo because they rarely last more than 10 - 30 seconds, but they are tantrums because they rarely do not involve the kid's entire body going limp and ending up in a wailing lump.  He tries to cry but the tears almost never come.  His high school drama teacher is already concerned with his inability to commit to the moment.

So, we have started to be more active in our disciplining of him.  I use the term "discipline" loosely; we aren't punishing as much as we are telling him to stop doing something (i.e., throwing handful upon handful of oatmeal on the floor), or we take away something such as Play-Doh because "it's delicious!"

The vast majority of the time, Matthew follows directions really well.  In fact, this was something his preschool teacher pointed out as a strength of Matthew's during our parent-teacher conference a couple weeks ago.  However, when he chooses to be done with that, well...

And when something like that happens, how do you not LAUGH?!?!  Or when he shushes his mother when she firmly tells him to stop doing something.  I mean, you can't get more disrespectful as a two year old that saying "shh, mommy, shh" while holding a finger to your lips as she tells you to stop dumping an entire box of Cheez-Its on the ground.  But how do you stay angry and keep a straight face with that?!  The answer is, you can't.  Which is why you have instances such as tonight, when E was bathing Thea and Matthew ran into the bathroom, went straight to the tub, and threw a chicken bone into the water.  E immediately told Matthew that "we don't throw garbage in the tub."  I provided a steady hand of household leadership by laughing in the kitchen.  Matthew looked at E, turned around, ran out of the bathroom, turned left and ran to watch Charlie Brown Kicks Lucy's Face And Doesn't Feel Bad, or something of the ilk.

Speaking of firm hands, you will notice in the video above that E and her brother are about five minutes past actually trying to discipline Matthew and Titus.  The comedic efforts overwhelmed the parental efforts.