Discipline and Pregnancy

I've been lax on disciplining Silas lately. I know it, and most of my family and friends probably can tell as well. Let's face it, at 38 weeks of pregnancy making sure Silas is reprimanded whenever he goes all pouty and moody just takes too much energy. We've been verbally disciplining him for throwing mini tantrums - stomping a foot, saying No!, pumping his arms down and in general being ugly - but I haven't been consistent in actually disciplining him for it. I've been reprimanding myself for this over the past few days, and today I drew a line.

We were over at his cousins' house and he was having a good time playing when I said it was time to go. He gave an ugly protest and refused to say good-bye to anyone but Mary Ann. He also knows that I might excuse his behavior if he acts like he's tired (crying, wanting to be held, etc). No excuses tonight.

We went home and talked about why he needed disciplining. I told him that he couldn't have fits or be ugly and that he needed to be punished for behaving in that manner. He looked up at me with hope in his eyes and said, "But Jesus took my punishment!" Wow. Explaining the difference to a 3-year-old between Mommy's punishment and God's punishment is difficult, but we managed to talk it through. Complete understanding obviously isn't there yet, but we'll keep talking about it.

So I gave him his discipline, and that's when I realized one more reason to go easy on disciplining while pregnant. My hormones have been going all wacky and by the end of his punishment, we were both balling our eyes out. It would be SO easy just to let Silas have his way and do as he pleases. I can completely understand taking the easy way out of discipline, but I believe that would be selfish of me.

So we talk about why he needs to be disciplined every time he does something wrong (the poor kid will probably end up dreading the conversations with Mommy more than the discipline). We were both crying when I tried to explain to him why I have to discipline him, and how I don't want him to be self-centered and selfish (in 3-year-old terms) but be a good man who loves God and His Word. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and in a wobbly voice said, "Okay, Mommy, I will be." This starts up fresh tears for me. Hugging tightly to my neck he says, "Can we stop crying now, please Mommy?" So we went and had warm milk and cookies on my bed while I read him books before bedtime.