Happy New Year again although it is over.
It had been a good last 15 days for us. We had visited the River Hongbao 2012, Sentosa Flowers 2012, many visiting, and even watched Chingay 2012 (Live). Many good food – Yu Sheng my favourite which I get to toss for 5x.
My health has been well too. My cough is finally gone for good. I had hardly coughed much after I see a Respiratory Specialist. However, my weight is not really under control now. I suspected the steroid from the inhaler is acting on me.
Yvette went back to Music Class and Chinese Class on Saturday.
For D, he will sit for his first Exam on 18 Feb.
Everything is on the right track except we can feel hurricane is blowing toward us!
Hurricane? Horrible tantrum from Yvette for the past 2 days.
On Sunday, Stella came. Honestly, the kids had great time. Yvette can play very well with Velda and Zac now. Of course the fun trade off with her nap and then after they left, she became so cranky and bawling. Nothing can pacify her. She eventually stopped crying on the cab. (We need to go my mum’s place on Sunday evening.)
On the very night, she refused to sleep because of the late nap. No matter how I coaxed her, she simply “Bo Chap” me. Finally I carried her to her bed. She cried for another half an hour and then finally fell asleep.
This morning, there was another nightmare for me. But I am not the one that managed her tantrum this round. She was semi-conscious this morning when I dropped her off. However, I have forgotten her water bottle and I decided to make a trip back home for her. Before I left the school, she was already crying out loud. Both her English and Chinese Teacher tried to cajole her, again, no matter what; she simply refused to stop crying.
She was like crying for appox. 30 mins. Jumping up and down showing her unhappiness to her teachers as she howled.
Her teacher put her at “Time Out” Corner till she finally stopped crying. Her teachers didn’t give her back the bottle and she was given cup for the whole day. I applaud the teachers who are so willing to put in effort to discipline my naughty girl.
Perhaps some of you might feel that is perfectly normal. But to us, we really find it odd.
Yvette’s has been really emotionally well control ever since she turned three. We have hardly needed to deal with much meltdown. Seeing the continuity of 3 episodes of meltdown alarmed us. So we went to speak to both teachers today. We wanted to hear their opinions about change behavior from Yvette.
The Chinese Teacher shared with me indicating this will be another phase and we need to help Yvette to manage her emotion and expectation on us. The English Teacher suggested “Time Out Zone” for Yvette at home; So that when she was crying so badly, she can stay there to calm now before we talk about the incident again. (Of course both teachers shared much more that I have pen down here.)
After talking to Yvette and discussing, we feel it still good to have a Time Out Corner despite we have Naughty Corner at home.
Once we decided, we stressed to Yvette Time Out Corner will be completely different from Naughty Corner. In Time Out Corner, she can sit down and hug her bear bear. She can drink water, she can cry as long as she could. In Naughty Corner, she can’t sit down, can’t drink water. But both is all about asking her to “calm down so we can talk”.
Time-out teaches kids that their emotions and behaviours aren’t acceptable. Sometimes this may be true as it pertains to behaviour, but emotions are real and need to be respected. They also need to be regulated! Forced time-out is not an effective way to help a child regulate his or her emotion.
So once she cools down, we always talk to her. Both of us would sit down to talk to her. Making her understands what is right and what is wrong.
Apparently the episode ended up well tonight. Yvette didn’t misbehave and didn’t take very long to doze off. She was on the bed around 10.20 and dozed off 20 mins later. (My wish is Yvette could sleep at around 10 and up on 8 am. However I am contented if she could sleep by 11 and up at 8 am.)
I hope with more communication between us and together with the help from the teachers, we can resolve this problem and her sleeping habit effectively!
