Learning to Be Nice

Katy is now seventeen months.  She is moving all the time, she says more words than I can count, and she is constantly looking for new things to explore.  She is also starting to enjoy Doug.  Katy enjoys feeding Doug, she occasionally laughs at things he is doing, and sometimes she even tries to initiate play with Doug.  When Katy has became too rough with Doug. however, I quickly stop her, pet Doug gently, and say, in a gentle and drawn out voice, "Be nice."  Now, when I tell Katy to "be nice" to Doug, she immediately ceases the rough behavior that warranted the instruction, gently pets Doug, and says, "nice," in a calm, drawn out voice.

Over the last several weeks, Katy has become increasingly interested in what I do when I'm in the kitchen.  I try to involve her as much as possible but sometimes she isn't big enough to help, which makes her frustrated.  The frustration usually plays out without consequence, but a few times it has escalated until Katy hit my leg with her hand while making a defiant noise of dissatisfaction. Immediate verbal correction always followed and this correction usually involved the familiar phrase "be nice," although in the broader context of "be nice to mommy." 

Today, Katy hit my leg in a moment of frustration.  Before I could correct her, she immediately began gently stroking my leg and saying, in a soft, drawn out voice, "nice."  I held in my laughter as my daughter petted me like a dog and instead agreed that yes, she should be nice to mommy just like she should be nice to Doug. 

Aside from the humor in being petted like a dog, I learned a parenting lesson today.  In the future, I need to be more specific with my instruction to Katy because her cognitive understanding is now developed enough to apply concepts from one scenario to another.  I never imagined that teaching Katy to respect Doug would be useful in teaching her to respect me because in my complex understanding of dogs and people, Doug and I are in vastly different categories.  In terms of the simpler concept of hitting, however, Doug and I are in the same category.  As I type this, I recall reading advice about specific instruction in parenting articles and books, but what I read apparently didn't have much impact until I witnessed the reason behind the advice play out at home.  Sheesh, learning how to be an effective parent is a big task, kind of like learning to be nice.