I got myself into a bit of a quandary.
A few weeks ago I was cleaning out a bunch of stuff I had stored for the last 2.5 years from when we moved out of the city. I found my son's 6oz boxing gloves and punching mitts from when he was little. My daughter was fascinated by them and had to try them out. So I helped her put them on and showed her how to throw a punch and then put punching mitts on and let her have at it.
She has asked to "practice punching" a few times since then and I obliged.
But I have noticed recently that she has gotten into a bad habit of wanting to punch things (pillows, couch cushions, her stuffed animals) and play aggressively with her toys, making them fight. I want my daughter to be strong, confident and know how to defend herself but I don't want her to become an aggressive person or a bully. She is little, so likely she has just found something new that she thinks is fun and is just doing it all the time like kids do, but I need to ensure she understands the appropriate time to use her new found skill.
Today, when we got back from a trip to Walmart and I was unloading bags from the car she punched me in side. I turned and looked sternly at her and said "you will not do that again" but a few minutes later she tried again. I blocked her attempt and held her wrist and said "Listen to me. This is not acceptable. The only time you will punch is when you are training or if someone is trying to hurt you. If you walk around trying to punch people, one day someone is going to punch you back and a lot harder, so you need to learn to be judicious. Do you know what it means to be judicious?" She replied "no". I said "It means to have good judgement, make good decisions, to know when it is the right and wrong time to do things. So, no more punching unless we are training or there will be no more training."
She agreed.
Ultimately, I think the best solution is to get her started in martial arts classes so she can learn to channel physical energy appropriately and productively. In the meantime, hopefully our little talk did the trick to at least getting her to think about her actions before she does them.
Thanks for reading. Sats for all,
GR