Supernanny!

Keep cool. You're the parent and you're in charge. Don't answer a tantrum by a display of anger or respond to shouting by shouting back. You're the adult here. Don't let them wind you up.
From Supernanny Jo Frost's Top 10 Rules

My husband left early this morning to go back to Smalltown. He gets up at 2:50 so that he can shower and leave by 3:30. That way he makes it to work by his 6:00 shift. Of course, last night, he didn't get more than a few minutes sleep in any one stretch, so he was very tired. Great. I love when he drives 2 1/2 hours on very little sleep.

Anyway, since I was up at 3:30, I was flipping through the channels. There was nothing on at 3:30. I have 100 channels and 85 of them are infomercials. Of the remaining 15, 8 of those are in a language I don't speak, and the rest are either televangalists (don't get me started) or weird stuff I don't want to watch.

But, at 4:00, Oprah was on. Oh, yes. Oprah. Let me just say that I usually don't watch Oprah mainly because it comes on when I'm at work. While I do very little at work, heading off to the breakroom to watch Oprah might cause some problems, you know? So, the only time that I get to watch Oprah is when it comes on again at 4:00 in the morning. The guest? Supernanny Jo Frost. I have never watched Supernanny because I am secretly afraid that the child on the TV will be way too much like mine I don't usually watch reality TV.

The first couple had a 6 year old and a 2 year old. The older boy was soooo out of control. I wanted to reach through the TV and give him a good spanking. The younger child was well on his way to being the same way. The younger son's issue was bedtime. So, I watched while Supernanny explained to the parents everything that they were doing wrong (relating to so much of it that I almost turned it off). Then, she brought in two pieces of carpet (one for each child, I assume) which she called the "naughty mat." The child gets a warning first and then when he repeats the behavior, he has to go to the naughty mat where you ignore him while he's in time out. My first question: What if they don't feel like staying on the naughty mat and come looking for you? It's hard to ignore the child who is pulling at your clothes. But, the six year old stayed. And everything worked out. Yea!

Now, on to the two year old's sleep problems. The two year old doesn't want to go to sleep. He will yell and scream and get out of bed, etc. The parents were often up until 11:30 to midnight dealing with this issues. My first thought: Thank goodness my daughter can't get out of bed. At least if she wants to cry it out, well, she can't get down and play. Anyway, the technique here was very interesting, and I think I'll use it next time my daughter decides that she doesn't want to go back to sleep in the middle of the night.

Just a side note: She has been going to bed very well since we gave her back the dummy, and I have gotten a full night's sleep for the past 3 nights (well, except the dogs always want out at some point).

What Supernanny had Mommy do was sit next to the crib where the child could see her profile. She was not to make eye contact, just sit. When he got out, she put him back in bed and sit back down being careful never to make eye contact. This gives him the security of knowing that Mommy's in the room, but she's not available to play. He was asleep in 25 minutes. The goal is to sit a little bit farther away every night until you don't have to sit in the room at all. It looked really promising.

What struck me most about this family is when the mother was up at 11:46 crying in the kitchen with the screaming 2 year old in his bedroom. I felt her pain. I wanted to cry right along with her. Supernanny asked her why she was so upset, and she replied that felt like she was doing a bad job. She didn't want to screw up her kids, and she felt like she only got one shot at it. Supernanny explained to her that it was okay for her to admit that she didn't have all the answers. By this point, I was crying. Everything she said, I've felt. I couldn't believe how well behaved the kids were by the end of the show.

There were other families, but the first one was the one that stood out in my mind (maybe because I was dozing off during the rest?).

I've had a lot of luck with another technique she used, making eye contact. When I'm trying to get through to my daughter, a lot of times, I will kneel down in front of her, take her arms gently in my hands, and make her look at me. She doesn't always want to comply. Sometimes I have to tell her, "Look at me," more than once, but if I start the battle, I win. Usually, she looks at me and says, "No." I don't think she's being a smartass or anything. I think she knows that what she did was wrong, and that's her way of letting me know. I always tell her what she did that was unacceptable, and let her go. Nine times out of ten, she won't go back to what she was doing. I guess when Mommy gets down on her level, she knows I mean business.

I really wish that I knew where I put my instruction manual for raising children. It would make things so much easier. :)