Must Be Doing Something Right....

"You're a REALLY bad PARent!" huff huff stomp stomp whine whine cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Says my 5 yr old.
Juliana is being punished by going to her room directly after dinner for BITING Gracie not once, but twice. Left bruises, marks and teeth scrapes on Grace's shoulder. It's horrifyingly ugly, and something I never thought one of my own children would do to another. While I was cooking dinner, they were upstairs and Grace was in Juliana's room. Juliana decided she didn't want Grace in there, and DH was in our room ignoring the ruccus.

Juliana was yelling "I hate you Grace" and "You're a very bad girl Grace" and other insults, all of which Grace took in stride until Juliana BIT her and shoved her. Grace came to me crying, and I just couldn't believe things got so far (I put 50% of the blame on DH since he was right there) and my heart just breaks for her. She's so sensitive.

So Juliana is grounded for the rest of tonight as well as all of tomorrow, which means to bed right after dinner. She's not allowed to watch any of "her" TV shows for the rest of the week & 2 of her favorite loveys are in jail. I AM letting her keep her single favorite lovey or she'll have a breakdown.

I sat and talked with her without losing my cool, but it really hurts having to protect one child from another of my own. :-( She apologized to Grace and even kissed her, felt genuinely bad, and said she understood why she was getting the punishment. She agreed that it was fair... until it came time to follow through.

The prize comment was when she kept getting up from her dinner seat to go watch TV. I said "Either get your butt to bed or get to your dinner table and eat. Those are your choices. I'm not saying it a 3rd time." She says "You didn't say please and you weren't nice, so what do you say to THAT?" My response was "I say that I'm being nice enough because I'm not smacking your butt." "Oh, OK yeah I'll finish my soup and then go upstairs." And she went upstairs, grumbling all the way.

All I want is to teach my children to made good choices, and somehow Juliana decided biting her little sister was a good choice. She knew it was wrong and would get her in trouble and she did it anyway. How disappointing.