After watching Monday nights horrific ending to The Bachelor aka The Controlling Tyrant Hour, I really couldn’t even bring myself to write down my thoughts about it. That ish was F’d UP. Homeboy is deluded. DELUDED, bringing that word back like Cher Horowitz from Clueless. We all know it was terrible. You don’t need to hear me talk about the amount of times he talked in circles, furrowed his brow, got annoyed, ignored questions, was all douchey, you saw it, I saw it, buh bye JP. BYEEEEEEEEE.

Moving on.

I go to this moms group called MOPS…no we don’t like talk about mopping our floors, it stands for Mothers of Preschoolers, and basically I go to get brunch, childcare, and listen to other women give me secrets about how they raised their kids to not be hellions; all things I like, need, and desire…specially brunch.

This past week, the topic was discipline. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN.

I thought this would be a 30 minute chat on the various ways in which we can discipline our kids, how to approach disciplining kids at different ages, how to identify different personality types, ya know…helpful things. But what we got instead was a 30 minute discussion on the mechanics and “proper” coughgrosscough ways to spank your child to show them “Respect”….

I know this is a heated topic. It’s even kinda heated in my own home. I reign from the town of no-spank-land and my husband reigns from the town of if-you-deserved-it-swak-ville. Not saying either of these towns is ya know…better…we’re just different. The topic of spanking just confuses me.

Scenario:

1. Annoying child number 1 pulls sisters hair because she stole his jar of bubbles.

2. Mom spanks annoying child number 1 for causing physical harm to the sibling.

3. Child walks away confused as a monkey with no bananas to eat….

Our speaker this week also told us that giving any type of warning was basically giving yourself the middle finger as a parent. No warnings? Really?? How is my kid ‘spose to know what I want him to do or how am I ‘spose to teach him to be in control of his own behavior? I get the “im gonna count to 3” thing is kinda bologna…but giving my kid 1 warning doesn’t feel like damage to his entire psyche or guarantee his spot in the local jail  cell in 15 years…I dunno, maybe I’m naive.

I don’t know what we’re going to do yet. I’m assuming there is a happy medium in the world of discipline that lies between butt beating and complete lack of control. But after listening to someone tell me that I should wack my kids 3 times, hard enough to leave a pink mark for a few days, as a proper “respectful” form of discipline…I’m just not on board with that.

Wiser mothers, any advice? Any tips that worked for you? Specifically with the ripe tough age of 14 months where I spend 10 minutes everyday reminding him not to pull my glasses off my face? 🙂