How far would you go to keep your kids from fighting? One mom on Instagram started quite the conversation after admitting that she tied the sleeves of her sons' shirts together to get them to stop fighting while they were seated next to each other. Some people are praising her for her decision, while others are calling her a terrible mother.
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When you have toddlers, sometimes you have to take drastic measures
Summer Shillingford, who runs the Instagram page Identical Triplet Mama, has a set of triplets who are toddlers, as well as a daughter who is 9. She recently shared a video of the time she had to tie the sleeves of two of the triplets' shirts because the boys, who were 2 at the time, wouldn't stop hitting and smacking each other while riding in a wagon.
Shillingford did what she felt like she needed to do at the time
"I’d still do this a million times over to stop them hurting each other!" she captioned the video, calling it "my most controversial reel ever." In the reel, she explained that the boys were "pulling each other's hair & scratching each other's faces," so she tied their sleeves.
The boys didn't look distressed by the action
"They were so unfazed by having their sleeves tied, they just went to scratch, realised they couldn’t and they then focused on why their arms weren’t moving instead ♀️," she explained in the caption of the post.
She's right, the boys are sitting calmly, looking around and kind of trying to figure out how to get themselves free. No one is crying or thrashing around out of distress or fear.
She admitted that some people "didn't agree" with her choice
"What do you think?" the video asked. Followers wasted no time giving Shillingford a piece of their mind about her disciplinary choice.
"Don’t think this is the way to teach them good behaviour, would you handcuff them? It’s the same thing !!!!" one person said.
"Not only myself mother of 4 girls nor my daughter mother of twins would have taken this approach to control these kids.. I am not sure they still use this terrible method on “crazy adults” before bringing them by force to a facility to be treated… Kids are like sponges they learn what they see their parents do. They are the results of their upbringing. If you all think restraining them by force and putting fear on your kids bc are your kids is the best solution…. i am just wondering how were you all raised by your parents ," another shared.
"It is not a good idea. The important thing is to teach them not to attack each other and to respect each other. That is the lesson to learn. When I untie their hands, the accretion will continue if they don't learn not to hurt each other."
Others heaped on praise for her quick thinking
Plenty of followers praised Shillingford for her quick-thinking solution.
"Your children, your rules. You weren’t hurting them. You were stopping them hurting each other. They didn’t look distressed in the slightest and no doubt they learned from it," one person added.
"I agree with this. It is essentially a form of time out. It redirects them and takes away the 'tools' that they are using to be violent. Now instead of scratching & pulling hair they are trying to figure out how to untie their shirts," another shared.
"I have done this with my twins. I've called it the friendship t shirt. It does help… but always explaining why I'm doing that…"
