Parenting

I need to control my temper, patience and emotions more.

Especially now when Little Baby is not so little anymore and is slowly exploring the world around her, its boundaries and limits, and discovering her own assertiveness and insistence.

Dinnertime yesterday started out peaceful and was smooth-sailing till the point when she decided to spit out her food. I thought she was full already even though she had only had a few mouthfuls of food. But for some reason she asked for more food and so I gave her more, only to have her spit the food out again and again. It was a game to her and I guess she was testing limits. I firmly reprimanded her and she responded by grabbing the bowl and spoon. She also managed to grab a fistful of mee sua, squished it between her fingers and was going to smear the food on the sofa in the living room.

I scolded her and then I snapped. And gave her a hard smack on her thigh. It was the hardest smack I’d ever given to her. It left red prints on her thigh. She was momentarily stunned and in the second moment she started bawling her eyes out.

I left her crying on the sofa, cleared up the food mess and walked away to cool myself down.

Went back to her 2-3 minutes later and she’d stopped sobbing by then. I was a lot calmer and she was distracted by a toy then. I felt bad to have left a mark on her skin. I held her hand and she squeezed my fingers. I gave her a hug and she rubbed her face on me. All was forgiven.

She might have forgotten the pain of the smack but I could not forget the rage and frustration I had felt at that point in time when I smacked her.

Learning point:

I need to control my temper, patience and emotions better. Also, now that I have the benefit of hindsight, one thing I should have done was to explain to her why I did what I did. It was a teachable moment and I missed the opportunity. Nevermind, move on. Just need to bear these in mind. There will be other incidents and teachable moments in the future.

Food for thought:

How could I have handled the situation better? Besides losing it and smacking her, would talking to her and reasoning it out with her have helped? While she is only 18 months old, she seems relatively more mature and mentally/emotionally developed compared to some of her peers, her teachers have said so too.

Further thoughts:

Parenting is a constant learning journey. A period of self-discovery for the parents as well. There’s a long way ahead for all of us, including Little Baby. May we all grow and develop ourselves into better beings in time to come.