When discipline gets ugly

**Dear bloggy friends, The past few days have been unbelievably craptastic, so excuse me if I take a few days to process them before writing about them in detail. I could give you the rundown of what happened, but in depth analysis will take some time.**

I consider myself to be a rather intuitive person. That's why I named my blog mamasense. I feel like the gut is the best way to make decisions. Not that logically thinking problems through is a problem, but the gut guides you even when convention, society, or whoever tells you differently.

Opening myself up to being intuitive in this way has had some side effects that I didn't exactly plan for though.

My sensitivity to real or perceived slights to me, my family, our dog, etc. has gone through the roof. Comments about my weight have become very unwelcome. Before having babyjama, I was not sensitive about my weight in the least...aside from certain comments in elementary school suggesting that I was anorexic. These days however, if anyone says anything beyond "You've lost the baby weight haven't you? You look great." It gets under my skin, and I am left to wonder...was that a compliment or an insult?

Also, I have become so empathetic to others, that someone telling me their problems can send me reeling for days. If someone tells me that they're having marital problems, I stew and fret about this for days...Even if we aren't that close. The car accident on Saturday, left me feeling physically ill. When I see a parent being (what I consider to be) unnecessarily harsh, I think about the child for days, hoping and wishing that there was something that I could do. It's especially problematic when I see things happen that would have been a huge blow to me as a child. You see, my mama is a very sensitive person herself, and understood that children are sensitive beings. So she never embarrassed us in public by yelling at us or disciplining us in front of other people (embarrassing us by telling stories about us, or acting weird in general?...that's another story, but I think every mom does that.)

So, I just recently witnessed a Mom humiliating her daughter for not being polite enough around company (she had told an adult not to touch her toy). Mom yelled at the little girl, pulled her arm, and when that wasn't enough, as the little girl pulled and pulled to get away, the mother got a smile on her face and then let go of her arm. This effectively made the two year old fall down and bawl...for which she got in trouble.... After the exchange, the mother had a smug look on her face that said to me that she was glad that people could see that she wasn't spoiling her kids. It was such a tiny little incident in their life, but my lip was curling...I know I talk about not judging other Moms, but this really got under my skin. What was wrong with pulling her toddler aside and letting her know that her tone had been rude? Why did this mother take such pleasure in humiliating this little girl? Is it necessary to force children to bend to our will no matter what? I doubt that that toddler even knew what she had done wrong before she was in trouble. What is wrong with explaining unacceptable behavior to a child? I think it would go a lot further.

Let's discuss thoughts on discipline.