Thursday, February 01, 2007

She Loves Me!

A few weeks ago Louisa and I had a big blow-out fight. Now that she's nine, they aren't uncommon. She thinks she's right and she knows more. I KNOW I'm right and I know more.
We keep fighting about the same things over and over again, though. Some of it has to do with her asserting herself. I have no problems with her standing up for herself if I'm wrongly accusing her. It happens. She needs to learn now how to stand up for herself. Lord knows I've been a doormat my whole life. I definitely don't want to see my daughter turn out the same way. But some of the things we fight about are just her disobeying me, her thinking she's smarter than me (and with my IQ, that's very unlikely!), and her wanting to be the mommy of the house. That all probably comes from being the oldest sibling, and a girl. I'm the youngest, so I don't really get it.
Some times when we butt heads like this I give her bible verses to look up. I need to stop and take a break and look things up and figure things out, so I figure if I do it, then she should too. It's not punishment. Punishment is when I make her write "I am not the mommy in this house" 100 times for the first offense, 200 for the second offense... you get the picture. Looking up relevant verses in the bible teaches her that, according to our faith, there is a one stop shop for all the answers she needs. Plus, she likes it and learns a lot from it.
So I had her look up about 4 verses, I think. We both really calmed down and things got better. After she was done she thanked me and told me it was fun.
Later in the day, I got this note:
So I guess sometimes I do something right! {{{holding my head up proud}}}

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that is a great idea to have her look up bible verses! My hubby's dad used to make him do the same thing and write a report about it. So glad kids don't stay mad at you forever! What you are doing is working, keep up the good work!

blogpaul said...

Too cool!