Setting Limits and Using Consequences by Joe Sky-Tucker

I am not a parent yet. My experience comes from the nine years and counting that I have worked with children, from after school daycare to a locked residential unit for “at-risk” youth and everything in-between. This article comes from my personal experience working with children and my great respect and love for them.

Disciplining your child has a negative connotation. There are books about positive discipline and different philosophies from using “time-out” to spanking. Whichever method is used there are some important things to know:
1. Every child needs to be loved unconditionally.
2. Every child needs limits. I cannot emphasize this enough.
3. Every child needs consistent limits and boundaries.

There is a rule when working with children called the ‘20 to 1 Rule’. That means 20 positive interactions with a child for every 1 negative one. Positive interactions can include compliments, physical affection, spending quality time with him. With parents that number is even higher: some say 50 to 1 and others say even 100 to 1.

Too much of discipline is punishment and negative consequences. Another method of discipline is reinforcing positive behaviors. Catch them being good and make a big deal out of it. If you are teaching table manners say, “I like how you are using your napkin to wipe your face. Good job!” This will work much better than yelling, “Stop wiping your mouth on your sleeve!”

When a child is chastised and put in “time-out” constantly, it can become the only form of attention she gets, thus creating a cycle in which she will act out just to get attention. That is why after every major consequence like a “time-out” it is important to repair the relationship. Your child feels like she has failed you. So talk about what happened, making sure to let her give you her side of the story without interruption. Then correct anything that didn’t happen or was untrue and come up with a more accurate version. And make sure she knows you still love her.

Ask her what she was feeling and if she doesn’t know you can suggest the feelings for her, “Were you feeling sad, mad, frustrated…?”. Validate her feelings, then talk about positive ways she could have expressed those feelings, “When you were mad, instead of throwing your shoe, what could you have done?” Then make a plan for the future when she gets mad again, “Next time you can stomp your feet and say ‘I’m mad’, then we can figure out what to do about it.” By doing this after major conflicts you are providing a structure in which your child’s voice is heard, and you are teaching her about expressing her feelings and the proper ways to behave.

Here is a little parental cheat sheet:
1. Love your child and let him know it often.
2. Have consistent well-known rules and consequences for breaking the rules.
3. Always repair the relationship and let the child know that you still love him.
4. Provide him with the correct words to get his needs met in positive ways.
5. Validate her feelings; she may be experiencing these feelings for the first time.
6. Use ‘do’ instead of ‘don’t’. ‘Use your fork to eat.’ instead of, ‘Don’t eat with your fingers.’
7. Rules, boundaries and limits are positive things, and they help your child to become secure, self-sufficient adults.

Joe Sky-Tucker is Saralee Sky's 29 year old son. Browse for natural products for mother and baby on Saralee's web site, Babynut. Read more articles on Babynut's free online newsletter, Nutsense.

Crib Tales - Or Sleeping With Baby By Saralee Sky

My friend, Eric, was over the other day. He and his wife are expecting their first baby in May. I was showing him my web site and he asked me, “Do you have any cribs?”

“No,” I said, “and I don’t recommend them.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Well for one thing, you simply won’t use it. And for another, the baby will much prefer sleeping with you,” I said. “If you sleep with the baby, it makes late night feedings so much easier.”

I showed him an ad for a co-sleeping bed that attaches to the parents’ bed. “You’ll get much more use out of something like this,” I told him. He looked at me like I was crazy! I could sympathize with his confusion – and his complete innocence as he approached parenthood.

Time and again I have seen first time pregnant moms get all starry eyed as they shop for cribs. Well-meaning grandparents step up and pay the price for this ‘essential’ piece of furniture. More money is spent on making the nursery just right. It’s part of the nesting instinct. But once the baby is born, those parents end up turning the crib into a storage area for all the cute stuffed animals they received as birth and shower gifts. And the beautiful nursery is seldom used until it is turned into a toddler’s bedroom.

Going to sleep in a crib all by herself is the last place the baby wants to be! And the nursery is just too far away from mom. For the first 12-15 months after birth, the baby still thinks of herself as part of her mother. She will sleep much better in the bed with her parents or in a sling or other kind of baby carrier. She needs the physical closeness as she adjusts to life outside the womb. At times when she absolutely must be put in the crib, a machine that makes the sound of a heartbeat and other noises heard within the womb will help her sleep. Those are the sounds she’s used to hearing. They are familiar and comforting.

My oldest son, Joseph, slept with me and my partner most of the time. Still I had a bassinet and then a crib next to my bed that I would occasionally try to use. He was an early crawler – in a hurry to be on the move. At 5 months he could crawl well! One day when he was in his 5th month I put him down for a nap in his crib and went to the bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet when I heard a thump and then a series of short pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pats coming closer and closer to the bathroom door. I opened the door with some trepidation to find Joseph right outside the door!

Wait a minute! How could that be? I just put him in his crib! So, I picked him up and carried him back to our bedroom and put him back in the crib and sat down on my bed to watch what he would do. That little 5 month old baby shinnied up the bars of the crib and launched himself head first out of the crib, landing first on my bed (I was there to catch him this time!) and then down onto the floor! Needless to say that was the end of the crib for Joseph!

Now I know that co-sleeping isn’t for everyone. You must decide what works best for you and your family. The most important thing to understand is that your little baby will grow up and away from you as quickly as he possibly can. That’s his job. Your job is to love and nurture and protect him as he grows. The early lessons he learns about the world around him in his first years he will carry with him throughout his life. If he is held and cuddled as much as possible in the first year, if all his needs are met quickly and with love, he will learn that the world is a safe place in which to live and grow.

When should you transition her to her own bed? There are many options here:
• When you are feeling too cramped.
• When she tells you she wants her own bed.
• When another baby is on the way.
• When it just feels right. Trust yourself and your baby to know when it’s time for her to sleep on her own.

I write this article from the perspective of a mother and grandmother. When my children were young I thought that time would be forever. Now my sons are all grown up and on their own. Still they look to me for companionship, for support when they are in trouble, and to help take care of their own children. How we parent says more about us than how we make our living or how we practice our spirituality. We are everything to our baby or toddler. If we raise him with love and respect he will grow up to love and respect himself and others. And - if you sleep with him when he is a baby - chances are much better that everyone will get a good night’s sleep!

You can read more articles by Saralee Sky in Nutsense! - a free online newsletter for parents. You can also visit Babynut for natural, organic and alternative products for mother and baby.

Hazel and Nutmeg - Episode Three by Saralee Sky

Slide-A-Tree

Hazel and Nutmeg lived in a cozy nest in a hollow area high in the big oak tree in the Big Backyard of the Man and the Woman and the Little Girl and the Baby Boy and the Dog and the Cat. Hazel was a black squirrel with a big bushy tail. She was the big sister of Nutmeg. Nutmeg was a gray squirrel (with a big bushy tail) and Hazel’s little brother. Hazel and Nutmeg lived with their mother, Mama Squirrel, and their father, Papa Squirrel.

On this day Hazel and Nutmeg were playing together all along the branches of the big oak tree. They would race to the very end of a branch then leap to the next one until they reached the tiniest branches at the very edge of the tree. Then they would leap onto the branches of the maple tree and do the very same thing. They could go from tree to tree in the Big Back Yard without ever having to touch the ground. It was great fun.

Nutmeg had a hard time keeping up with his big sister Hazel. She could run so fast it almost seemed as though she were flying. And she did this using only three of her little legs. For you see, in her right front paw she held tightly to Silky, a little doll Papa Squirrel had made for her out of corn husks and corn silk. Silky went everywhere with Hazel.

Hazel raced to the end of a maple branch and tried to leap to the tip of a blue spruce limb. With only three legs to grip with, this time she missed her landing and began to slide down the spruce needles. At first she was really scared, but as she continued to slide from branch to branch – cushioned by the spruce needles – she realized she had just invented a brand new game! She landed with a splash on the ground in a pile of oak and maple leaves.

“Wow! That was fun!” she exclaimed.

“Hazel! Where ARE you?” Nutmeg called. He was still high in the branches of the maple tree.

“I’m down here, Nutmeg, on the ground,” answered Hazel. She scampered up the trunk of the maple tree, over the large lower branches and out to the place where Nutmeg sat waiting for her.

“I just made up a new game, Nutmeg. It’s called Slide-A-Tree! Want to try it?” Hazel asked. Without waiting for a response, she raced to the end of the maple tree branch with Nutmeg close behind, and Silky clasped firmly in her right front paw.

Hazel leaped onto the blue spruce and began to slide and tumble down its branches again, this time knowing that she would end up at the bottom of the tree in the soft pile of leaves. Nutmeg was right behind her. Anything Hazel could do, he was willing to try. If he couldn’t do it the first time he would try and try again until he mastered it. This time he was able to slide and tumble along after her - though with more tumbling and less sliding - until he, too, landed in the soft pile of leaves on the ground.

Hazel and Nutmeg spent the next hour playing Slide-A-Tree again and again. As she sat in the pile of leaves after a particularly tumbly slide, Hazel looked around and said, “Where is Silky?” She was no longer tucked safely in her right front paw. “Oh no, I’ve lost Silky!” She began to run here and there, searching among the fallen leaves.

Nutmeg was still up in the maple tree about to leap onto the spruce tree. He didn’t hear Hazel. He was finally getting sort of good at Slide-A-Tree. He made his leap and began to tumble and slide down the spruce branches. A few branches down – though still a long way from the ground – Nutmeg spied something sticking out of the needles of a branch as he slid by. He tried to stop his slide by grabbing hold of the branch beneath the needles. Finally his paws caught the branch and he was able to climb back up to the object he spied. It was Silky!

He retrieved her and tucked her carefully in his right paw, just as he’d seen Hazel do countless times. “OK,” he said to himself. “I can do this.” His little face looking serious and determined, he let go of the branch and allowed himself to start sliding and tumbling toward the ground. It was a lot harder without his right front paw to help keep his balance. He ended up sliding mostly on his back, landing in a big blustery heap in the pile of leaves.

Hazel was still running back and forth looking for Silky. “Look, Hazel, I found Silky,” said Nutmeg, emerging from the heap of leaves, Silky held high in his right paw.

“Oh Silky, I was so worried!” said Hazel grabbing her out of Nutmeg’s paw and hugging her tightly. “Thank you, Nutmeg. You are a good little brother.”

“You’re welcome, Hazel,” said Nutmeg. ” I guess Slide-A-Tree isn’t Silky’s favorite game.”

Saralee Sky is the creator and co-owner of Babynut - an online store featuring natural products for mother and baby, and free online newsletter, Nutsense.

Hazel and Nutmeg - Episode Two - by Saralee Sky

The Bird Feeder

Hazel and Nutmeg lived in a cozy nest in a hollow area high in the big oak tree in the Big Backyard of the Man and the Woman and the Little Girl and the Baby Boy and the Dog and the Cat. Hazel was a black squirrel with a big bushy tail. She was the big sister of Nutmeg. Nutmeg was a gray squirrel (with a big bushy tail) and Hazel’s little brother. Hazel and Nutmeg lived with their mother, Mama Squirrel, and their father, Papa Squirrel.

All of the squirrels would stop from time to time for a snack at the Big Black Bucket on the Back Porch of the House, where the Woman put black sunflower seeds out for them to eat.

Hazel didn’t like eating from the Bucket. She liked eating from the Bird Feeder that hung from the roof of the Back Porch. She would grasp the wooden support from which the Feeder hung with her back legs, then stretch out as far as she could upside down. She could just reach the seeds in the Feeder. They were the same black sunflower seeds that were in the Big Black Bucket. But Hazel liked a challenge.

Mama and Papa squirrel had tried to warn her that she might hurt herself doing this. Or even worse, the Cat or the Dog might catch her while she was hanging upside down. But Hazel still preferred the seeds in the Bird Feeder. They tasted better, she was sure.

On this morning Hazel stopped for a bite to eat from the Bird Feeder on her way to the walnut trees to gather walnuts. Percy and Peachy were there, sitting in the branches of the big, old wisteria vine which wound over and under the porch railing across from the feeder.

“Good morning, good morning!” trilled Peachy.

“Be careful, be careful!” warned Percy. “You’ll fall on your head!” Percy and Peachy were House Finches, and Percy had a lovely peach colored head and chest. Their nest was in the same oak tree as Hazel’s family.

“No I won’t,” said Hazel confidently. “I do this all the time!”

“We know, we know!” said Peachy. “How’s the nut collecting going?”

“Good. We got lots already,” Hazel said, sitting upright on the wooden support to eat her seeds. “But Mama says we can’t eat them yet ‘cause they’re not ripe.”

“Well,” said Percy, “You can always fill up on sunflower seeds!”

Hazel gripped the wooden support with her back legs again and stretched her body as far as she could to reach for more seeds from the Bird Feeder. Just then the sounds of scampering feet could be heard. Little Nutmeg went racing by below the bird feeder and leaped into the tangle of wisteria vines. Close on his heels was The Dog, Bisbee the Golden Retriever, wagging her tail and barking.

Peachy and Percy went flying up in the air to safety in the branches of the nearby beech tree. But Hazel was upside down and the sudden noise startled her. She tumbled head over heels off the wooden support and landed in the Big Black Bucket. Bisbee swung away from the wisteria vine and started barking at Hazel in the Bucket.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” trilled Peachy.

“Go away, go away, go away!” scolded Percy. Both remained safely out of reach in the beech tree.

“Over here, over here, you big silly Dog!” called Nutmeg. He scampered about in the wisteria vines just out of reach. “Bet you can’t catch me!”

Bisbee turned back toward the wisteria vines for just a moment, but it was long enough for Hazel to leap out of the Big Black Bucket and scamper across the porch to safety among the wisteria vines herself.

“Whew! That was a close one!” Hazel said as she and Nutmeg raced through the vines, up the beech tree trunk and into its branches.

“I’ll say!” said Nutmeg. “Lucky thing I was there to save you!”

“Silly Nutmeg! If you hadn’t been chased by The Dog I wouldn’t have tumbled into the Bucket!”

“Oh,” said Nutmeg.

Saralee Sky is the owner of Babynut.