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Why This but Not That?

I've been thinking about how I react to everything the three toddlers do. After years as a special ed teacher and 16 years of parenting I feel like I'm pretty relaxed most of the time. I would generally describe my parenting style as: pick your battles and, really, are there that many battles worth fighting?

But lately it seems like I'm having big reactions to some things that the three littles do. For example: they were all three playing in the front yard and Kate opened the gate and got out into the driveway, even though I'd made a big deal about only mama opening that gate. Walking outside and finding her outside the fence (the gate had swung shut behind her) was about the angriest I have been since the girls came. I went absolutely ballistic...to the extent that I won't even describe here what I did to teach her this was extremely dangerous behavior.

We live in the country but our house is near a road that people go flying down because it's so quiet. Nobody is looking for a little child on the road as they're going 50 mph. I know I was angry because I was scared. But still, wow, I had a huge reaction to her blatant misbehavior of opening that gate right after I'd told her not to. (By the way, there is now a locking mechanism they can't reach on the gate.)

In contrast, there was this event this morning. I'm buckling Kate into her carseat for church when I look down and see the hem of her dress is snipped in about 5 places. It is obvious she's gotten ahold of some scissors and cut her dress. I don't even react.

First, it was a hand-me-down dress she's about to grow out of. Also, I know there are only two pair of scissors sharp enough to do that and if she got them then an adult or teen left them out. Plus, I've never told her not to cut things with scissors and I'm learning these kids have had such little parenting that they're truly missing some innate right/wrong knowledge our boys had even as young as 2.

So, whereas I punished Kate for opening the gate; I showed the dress to everyone else in the family and told them I'd be extremely upset if the girls got ahold of scissors again and did something like cut each other's hair. I truly believe if any of the toddlers got scissors it'd be a failure on the part of one of us because they're normally stored out of reach.

But when I reflect I ask myself. Why do I think resisting scissors is beyond the capacity of toddlers whereas avoiding a gate is within their capacity? I really don't know why.

I do know that I'm most upset when the girls take me by surprise. When they do something dangerous that I hadn't expected them to do, I feel completely off kilter. My brain is whirling with:
  1. What's a normal parental reaction and consequence for this age, but then,
  2. What's the appropriate response and consequence for a child with a trauma background, and also,
  3. Because they're still kinda new to me, how do I decide if they should've known better and are being mischievous or really don't have a clue due to lack of prior parenting?
It's really hard to process all of that in the moment...especially when frightened and in the throes of visualizing all the terrible things that could've just happened that very moment.

Our big boys played outside every day for years and years and never once opened that gate. It was a boundary they never pushed, literally.

But scissors, like knives and cleaning chemicals and medicines, are just something you always store out of a child's reach. I wouldn't expect any kid to handle those items safely if they encountered them.

Obviously everybody comes to parenting with their own expectations for what they think children of each age should be able to do. I'm struggling with rewriting my expectations from what my two older boys taught me to what is reasonable for two young girls coming from a whole different background and with completely different personalities.

All three of my boys are just naturally cautious. No daredevils among them. I now have one, Kate, who is clearly going to be a risk-taker. I think this will turn out to be a strength and she's going to be a confident, dynamic, successful woman one day. But right now...I've got a two year old hell-bent on self-destruction, it seems like.

She has at this very moment both a black eye and a fat lip from two different events a day apart...just your normal running and climbing around the house. This is the girl who makes me feel like an older parent.|

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