3 things that could be frowned upon

My homework:

I smack

Don't hate me: I smack sometimes. Very occasionally. But yes, I smack. All the books say you shouldn’t. My heart tells me I shouldn’t. But I smack sometimes when things are getting out of hand. Like when Jonah bites Hannah because he feels like it, or when James taunts Hannah or Jonah because he can, or when James refuses, point blank, to tidy his room after I’ve asked him 50 times to do so, and then when he does, it’s with such an attitude that he throws things.

I let my kids eat a biscuit when they wake up

It all started as something I did when I was pregnant. I was avoiding coffee, so the only thing that would wake me up was a sugary biscuit. The children caught onto it and now it’s a tradition: they wake up, come into our bedroom and have a biscuit before they go and play.

I allow my children way too much leeway in the Sleeping-On-Their-Own department

James slept in our room, in a cot, until he was almost 2. Hannah slept in our bed until she was almost 3. Jonah has recently been moved to his own bed in James’s room but he has yet to spend an entire night there. I’ve also allowed them to manipulate me into lying next to them until they fall asleep: we did that with James and Hannah until they were 3. I just heard from my dad that he doesn’t do that when he babysits: he gives Jonah his bottle and then walks out of the room. Funny how he gets it right but I can’t…