“…so in the course of asking from youngest to oldest their account of what happened, do their accounts factor in the consequences they receive?  Because all of them are disrupting the family feeling and not communicating well with each other, so because of that they earn a consequence.  But what if one was more a [...]

“When your kids are fighting, do you try to instruct them in the middle of that?  I often try to intervene but maybe too often - they don’t seem to be learning to problem solve with each-other rather than tattling and trying to get Mom to settle things in their favor.  I honestly don’t know [...]

“I have an 8 year old boy and a 6 year old boy and an 18 month old girl. One of the most frustrating things for me is when I’m trying to talk to my boys and give instructions and they ignore me by rough housing with each other or by joking and laughing at [...]

“I was just wondering, when trying to set up this type of family government for the first time, does it take several family meetings before you can actually implement it?  You talk about how each meeting shouldn’t be longer than 20 minutes, but if I’m understanding properly, to begin we need to talk about a [...]

In case some of you don’t look at the comments, I wanted to share this one. 
“I definitely relate to this mother’s feelings. It is really overwhelming to implement this new system and I make mistakes all the time. I’m also finding that I’m less diligent as time goes on and so it helps me to [...]

“I first just want to thank you for the wonderful things you do.  I attended the LDSEHE conference in Virginia in May and LOVED the classes I went to from you so much that I bought your CDs.  Since then, I’ve listened to them over and over and over trying to en-grain it into my [...]

Helpful tips.
 #1.  Really look into the eyes of your child when she is talking.  And watch the movements and gestures of her body and face while she plays and communicates to you.  This simple thing brings me so much more joy.  My soul can really feel my child’s soul and appreciate it if I take [...]

My 12 year old son sings barbershop with his dad and grandpa.  A few times per week they have rehearsals.  These rehearsals go pretty late into the evening.  Last night, my son went to bed around midnight due to one of these rehearsals.
This morning when he woke up he realized that he didn’t remember to [...]

We were reading some of Poor Richard’s Almanac today and we found something that really applies to self government. 
“He that cannot bear with other people’s passions, cannot govern his own.”  ~Benjamin Franklin
We simply cannot let the behaviors of our children bother us.  They are growing and are imperfect.  If we allow their passions to bring [...]

“I’m having trouble figuring out a good consequence beyond time out for my 3 yr old.  He and his brother who just turned 6 share a room.  I gave them an instruction to clean their room this morning, and he left the room to play with toys before it was done.  I told him, just [...]