Wednesday, 24 May 2017

What is the general consensus on child restraint?


So, my daughter is 20 months old. She is a big kid. She's still breastfed, and weighs almost 30 pounds. She's smart, she's strong, and when she wants something she wants it. Last night, we were playing in her room while my wife and mother-in-law cooked dinner, and I was told that dinner was about to be ready. My daughter, Emilia, wanted to play with a toy in the closet. I told her that it was not time to play with that toy, and it was dinner time. I took her hand/arm and started to pull her away from the closet (not forcefully) so that I could shut the door. She did not like this. When you try and pull her away from something, she pulls back towards wherever she wants to go. Like I said before, she is a strong little kid, so you need to pull a bit back to get her to come with you. After that, she normally dead-weights. So then you of course have to hold her so her head does not hit the ground, right...?Well, TL;DR she ended up with some red marks on her arm that she was cradling and pointing to at my wife. I really don't feel like I was holding her too hard, and they didn't bruise and are already gone now. She's acting like it's the end of the world, and has insinuated that what I did equates to child abuse. Meanwhile, I never really thought it was a big deal and that it was just a byproduct of the tantrum she threw at not being able to play anymore. I mean, what are you supposed to do in this situation? I guess I could have just picked her up, but I was trying to teach her not to do what I knew was coming. I wasn't yelling, or being forceful, I was calmly and nicely explaining that it was time to go eat while tugging her away from the closet so that I could shut the door. I was trying to teach her that "It's dinner time, we'll come and play later, come on let's go to the kitchen!" She's a slippery little kid, too. You do have to hold her a little tightly, or else she just skitters away when your grip loosens.This whole ordeal is super embarrassing, that I'm even feeling like I did something as horrible as I am being made to feel. Am I terrible? Was that wrong? I mean, my wife is really upset. I talked to my own mother about it already, and she sees nothing wrong with it at all. Is it just different parenting approaches? Or is my mom horrible, too?I've always wanted a family. Ever since I was a little kid I knew that I wanted to be a dad, and have a wife and children one day. However, there are a lot of times where I am made to feel like I have no business being a parent, because of something I did or did not do that my wife lost it over. This is seriously messing with my brain. Like, to be fair, I'm definitely not a "normal" person. My standards and ideals often widely differ from other people's (especially my wife's), and I am definitely super socially awkward. I don't often think that things that other people think are way not-okay are even something worth mentioning, so I am wondering if this is one of those times. Did I do something way out of line without even realizing it, or is my wife overreacting? I hate feeling like this. I would never hurt my daughter... via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2rAKTCT

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