Creative Parenting

We've been having some issues at daycare.  Very unladylike issues.  Paige has been pulling her dress up and showing her panties.  We've tried and tried to make her stop.  And she does for a little while, depending on the punishment, but it never seems to last. We've tried talking to her, time outs, spankings, and grounding her for the night.  All of these have had varying degrees of success.  She'll stop for a time, then start back up again.  After the last time she did it I told her if she did it again I wouldn't let her wear dresses to daycare again.  That seemed to work for about a month.

Today when I dropped her off I was told she kept doing it so much yesterday they made her change into shorts.  Yes, I noticed she wasn't in a dress when I got home yesterday, I'm not that unobservant.  But she and Ronnie had been bike riding, and they always change out of a dress to ride bikes, so I didn't think anything of it.  No, she was being bad and showing her panties.  She also bit Cameron and threw rocks at windows.  The biting was an easy solution.  I told her next time she bites Cameron I will let Cameron bite her back.  Teachers may not be able to let it happen, but Mommy can.  Paige doesn't want Cameron to bite her because it hurts.  Hopefully that will stop her from biting.  Mac Mac, her teacher, got her to stop throwing rocks by letting her know if she throws rocks again she'll lose some playground privileges.  The dress thing was a bit more difficult.  I did follow through on my promise of no more dresses to daycare.  But I also told her I would talk to Daddy and we would decide on her punishment together.

As I drove to work I called Ronnie to talk about it.  I had told her she couldn't wear dresses to daycare, but that still left lots of other places to wear one.  There was still weekends, church with Aunt Wii, Grammy's house, lots of places.  Ronnie took it one step further.  She can't wear dresses for a month. Ronnie brought home a couple of small boxes from work and Paige packed up her dresses and skirts.  She understands why she can't wear them.  We stacked the boxes up on a dresser in her bedroom with the date on them of when she can wear them again.  I was going to take a picture to post here, but at the last minute Paige had a temper tantrum and got sent to bed in a hurry.  I didn't have a chance to snap a picture.

I'm hoping this punishment will be effective.  Paige loves to wear dresses and not being able to wear them for a month will be pretty harsh on her.  That may sound like overkill to some of you.  But we're hoping that by taking them away, by the time she gets them back she'll have broken the habit.  Or, she'll be so happy to have dresses again that she won't want to lose the privilege for another month.