Say No in a Mean Voice

Last night Scarlett became quite the fiend about shutting the TV off. Riley and Alexandra were getting very upset, so we talked about how we needed to teach Scarlett "No!". I told the girls that they needed to say it to her in a mean voice, so that she would be able to tell the difference. After a while Riley started crying because she didn't want to be mean to Scarlett, so we then had a long talk. We talked about how parents have to sometimes be mean in order to teach their children and that it hurts our feelings to do that, but because we know our children will be better off in the long run we put up with feeling bad. It was kind of amazing to see Riley realize that parents don't like to punish their kids.

Scarlett has been a little better this morning about the TV. She now looks around to see if anyone is watching her before she pushes the button. If she's being watched she'll sit back down and give you this cute smile that says "I wasn't doing anything!" I have to admit though, her cutie little smiles makes it very hard to keep my mean voice going.