The baby is hitting now

We saw a disturbing thing this weekend. Mieka has learnt a behaviour that we do not know where it is coming from. She starts screaming when another baby touches her or her toys. I asked at the crèche, and apparently she is the one who also starts hitting at the other babies when they come too close. She is apparently also the only one exhibiting this behaviour.
Where did she learn to do something like this? She has never seen such behaviour at home. She does not get upset when we play with her toys. There is also no hitting or slapping involved. It must be something that she learnt at the crèche? Some sort of survival thing between the other babies? There are six of them at the crèche. But we are horrified that we have an eleven month old bully in the making. Or is this the result of the woman at the crèche who has been fired for giving a baby a hiding? Maybe she gave Mieka a hiding as well?
How do we unlearn this behaviour? I did not think that she would start with this sort of thing at such an early age.
Or is she a small Joan of Arc in the making, fighting for her rights? Maybe it is only our perspective on the behaviour – a child should be able to fend for herself? Needless to say, we are really worried…

Photo: Mieka on Sunday (taken by her grandfather James)

Naughty baby

I am still on the subject of punishing babies for naughty behaviour. Babies vs. punish vs. naughty behaviour are not supposed to be mentioned in the same context. Am I wrong? I hate it when somebody asks me: “Is the baby good?” What is that? When do you know that your baby is not good? When they cry? When they do not sleep through the night? When they complain? How else are they going to communicate with us if they can’t voice a concern? But I think that is the main reason why somebody could think that a baby needs discipline. I am talking about the person at Mieka’s day care who gave a baby a hiding. She got herself fired for doing that!
Are we still such a violent society, globally, that we think by punishing somebody with violence, we are teaching them to not behave violently? We are truly warped in our thinking. Religion contributes even more, because there is a punishing God who wants us to behave Or else… eternal punishment with a hell-fire! Does it give us a license to start hitting babies from very young? It seems like it! Very strange…
Mieka is a GOOD baby, thank you very much! I can’t imagine a time when I will classify her as being hit-ready. Maybe it is because I am an older mom, but I will definitely do my discipline differently than when I was younger. What do you think about disciplining babies?