Wishful thinking Sarah…
But just think-in 15 years you’ll WISH she was only tearing pages out of a book while laughing at you…hahaha!
Redirection might be your only hope through this phase. Then again, maybe not. It didn’t work for my little angel. ;-)
Oh my gosh, maybe I don’t Little Man to grow up as fast as I thought I did. LOL
Do you have any board books you can stump her with for a few days? BTW, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Scoop her up, hug her close and remind yourself that she’s one! Keep reinforcing that we use nice hands with books and then give her something she can rip the bejeezus out of instead. She might be intrigued by the sound the tearing paper makes, too. You could have her tear old magazines and use a glue stick and make a picture with her by glueing the pieces onto another piece of paper.
So in a few months I have that to look forward to??? Even while ripping she’s still the cutest little thing ever:).
Ohhhh, when Jude laughs at me after I say no, that is hands down THE WORST! It doesn’t help the Ryan occasionally laughs with him. :(
if it helps any… I love letting Jude play with books, but remembering back to my childhood all of our children’s books were doodled in with crayons, pages were missing and spines were falling apart. I wanted the books that we hand selected for Jude to also carry through to any other children we have undamaged. So, we have shelves up high in Jude’s room for all his good books. But since we encourage him to flip through some on his own, we keep the thick board books and cushiony soft books that are vituallu unable to be torn in a basket in the toy room for him to do as he pleases.
How ironic is it that you’re on a quest to promote literacy and your daughter is destroying books?
Heidi - SIGH.
It is a little ironic, isn’t it?
Lol. You have a lot of patience! My guess would be that she’ll suddenly surprise you very soon and totally stop tearing the pages. We never really had that issue becuase I only had board books available to him for the first year or so (I would have a firm grip on non-board books when reading to him). Then - sometime between 14 and 16 months, I realized that he could be trusted not to rip them and we haven’t had an issue leaving them out since.
But then…you just constantly move from one issue to another (currently - it’s unlocking the deadbolt on the back door…)
I think Heidi nailed it. I think we get practice in the areas where we need the most patience. Charlotte is just testing out her world, but the mere fact that she has picked destroying books is possibly, there is possibly a lesson in that for mama?
I hope to always keep my eyes open to that with Elijah.I think this was about when we started Time-Out with Malakai. It was (and still is) very short, but he doesn’t like it and generally listens when I tell him not to do things. Somedays though, he doesn’t care and still purposefully rips his books or throws things across the room and time-out he goes. It always ends with an explanation and a hug of course. And he always scampers off to play with much delight at the end. :)
An article on Time Out for Mehassa and you Sarah….
not a practice I would recommend.

By Heidi on August 09, 2010
I’m only laughing because we’re dealing with the same thing over here…however, our defiance is mostly at the table. She will pick up a black bean, eat one, then pick up another and give me a devilish (but oh-so-cute) smile.