Saturday, July 30, 2016

Overcompensating

I know that my little bug is spoiled. I also know that it was not just me who aided and abetted in this either. My whole family does a great job of loving on and spoiling my girl. We also don't really apologize for what we do and give to her. She like most other smaller children have moments where we are able to teach her that getting and doing are privileges not rights. I promise that she is not given everything she wants but she is given everything she needs. However you can spoil a child in ways other than giving them physical possessions.

I have been slowly working towards a reward type of system in our house. When I say working towards I mean we do it occasionally I am not sticking with it completely. When I really want her to do a household item/chore I will give an incentive. If you do these small simple tasks to help me clean up I will give you ___________. She is young enough that I believe she needs to learn how to do simple house hold tasks but too young to receive an allowance regularly for those things. Honestly, I am not ready to give her set chores, I want her to hold on to innocence and childhood just a little longer. None the less I am taking a slower more "exciting" approach to this. On Tuesday evening I asked her if she wanted to help me with laundry. I had already separated the loads into piles in my room. All she had to do was get a pile and transport it from my room to the laundry room. I offered an incentive of 1 small toy from a local store for doing a few things around the house. When I realized she jumped on it and had it done in 2 seconds I knew I was going to get more out of my incentive than I originally bargained for.  So I had her loosely make up her bed, put all pillows where they belonged. Then I had her pick up every single toy in the living room and "fold" the blanket she had gotten out earlier that morning. I also had her set up the next pile of laundry so I could do a quick toss in the wash. She was super excited to help because that toy was waiting on her. After we finished our tasks we loaded up and we got her the small toy she wanted.

Then Thursday night my nephew who is 18 months was over. My sister ran out to get some food and I was in the middle of a work thing that required about 5 minutes of my time. So I asked my girl to keep an eye on him. Now, that meant that he didn't go wondering into the bathroom to play in the toilet or that he didn't go into my bedroom which is not really small child proof. It did NOT require her to "babysit" him. And my 5 minutes of work could have been much much less if I were alone. However I was keeping an eye on both of them as well while doing other things. (Its called being a mom/women and being able to multi task). After I asked her says to me: "So I get 2 toys for doing this right, I mean I am watching him and that is more work than chores." I was shocked but also found it humorous that she immediately laid out her terms for me. I said something on along the lines of heck no but I was super mommy cool about it and explained to her that we don't get toys for doing things all the time and that we do things out of the goodness of our hearts too.

Of course, knowing me I analyzed it to death later that night. Am I giving her too much, do I have enough boundaries on "things." Is she one of "those" kids...etc. Chances are yes, no, and yes again. But what it really stirred up was do I try to overcompensate? Yes I do it, I overcompensate.

Overcompensating is something I think ALL parents do in aspects of their children's lives. It probably stems from guilt (that ugly word again) but we do it. Sometimes I think I do it because I am a single mom. I don't want her to be without because she IS without. But, I know it is ultimately done out of love and the desire to make sure all her needs are met at all times. I want to make sure she never feel's as though she is without.

I admit it I'm guilty of it - it happens. My intentions are good...

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