Time-Out Talk
I should have corrected him right there, but for some reason, I let him whine at me. It is always better to correct all negative behaviors as soon as possible.
Skills
4 Year-Old Stress
We got home late. My four year old fell asleep on the way home. After waking up, he came in to go potty, get dressed and go to bed. From the bathroom I heard crying. He was in there for a long time. He was in the bathroom trying to clean up a mess that he had made in his pants.It was very stressful and disturbing to him to find a dirty pants problem. This stress along with his extreme tiredness made him very sad and he just couldn’t help crying.
Is Hovering Necessary?
Hovering gives a message of not trusting. Ifhe thinks that you don’t trust him,he will think of himself as a dishonest person based upon your behaviors. Hovering is also a form of a power struggle. So, if you shouldn’t hover over a child to make sure that he follows through with earned consequences, or instructions that have been given, what should you do to change the behavior?
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He Won’t Clean His Room?
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.He went into time out nicely, and loved being praised for being good in time out after his 3 minutes were up. He promised to finished cleaning. But then he did it again. We repeated the process and he had a second time out, but he left time out before the time was up. Is it bad to use the same consquence twice in a row? Do consequences always need to get bigger?
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Do You See What I See?
Over the last year, my niece has gone through a change. The once happy, helpful girl changed into a whiny, depressed, girl that didn’t look at life the same. One day I got left home with the all the children whilethe adultswent shopping. While I was home with the children I started giving instructions for everyone to clean things up around the house. My niece started arguing with me, then she started whining, then she started complaining about everything in her life and told me that I just didn’t understand her. This is how I handled it…
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Speed Things Up
“My daughter takes 10 minutes to actually say ‘OK’ to an instruction. How do I speed things up?”
If it’s taking 10 minutes for the daughter to say “Okay” to an instruction, then she is having a power struggle and isn’t actually following the instruction. how could you do it better?
The Why’s To Disagreeing Appropriately
When I see my children are getting frustrated, I gently remind them that they can disagree appropriately. I even tell my children exactly how to disagree with ME sometimes. The point of the skill is to learn how to stop emotion and problem solve instead of get upset, and to learn when it’s a good time to appropriately disagree.
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When To Give Consequences And Do Corrections
When andhow do yougiveconsequences? For example,if youinstruct yourson to go clean his room (assuming you’ve prepped him for accepting a consequence) and he whines and says, “I don’t want to do it right now.” What do you say?
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Establishing Consequences
“…We taught the 4 basic skills and the kids had a lot of funrole-playing the way to respond to the different situations, they especially loved disagreeing appropriately! 🙂 Well, I hadn’t determined what our consequences were going to be yet so I told them we would just practice the 4 basic skills this week. I’ve learned from this that it is essential to have consequences established or there is no motivation to respond correctly…”
Why is it so important to have established consequences?
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The Times We Live In Part 1
A reader wrote to me telling me about a young neighborhood child that introduced things of a sexual nature to her daughter. This is not a fun subject. I have been avoiding putting it on the site, but the more I think about it, this topic is probably one of the biggest things parents face. How do we keep our children free from the disease of sexual impurity that seems to be taking over our world? How do we make them aware while not taking away their innocence?
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Whose Fault is It?
About five years ago I met a couple who seemed to have happiness in marriage completely figured out. They shared some of their secrets with me. One of them has made a huge impact on our home. It is called Odd and Even days.
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Should They Fight it Out?
There are sometimes when an argument is a natural consequence of a bad behavior. Do I stand back and let them or continue to be a referee between them?
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Fathers: Parent or Playmate Part 3
My husband is a neat and tidy sort of a person. There was a time when our family was living out of laundry baskets instead of closets and drawers, because I just wasn’t able to stay on top of the laundry like I would have liked to.Spencer suggested the topic of having a set time for the laundry to be done and put away. I didn’t make any comments, because I didn’t want to get involved in his problem solving.Figuring out what someone wants is the first step for helping them have ownership of their thoughts and actions. Problem solving in relationships requires discerning what the person really wants in order to see what is needed to inspire change in the person.
Step #1– Ask him
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Fathers: Parent or Playmate Part 2
We have just made a pretty good argument for Dad’s to parent differently and have different experiences with their children. However, having a different God given role doesn’t mean that Dad should feel separated from the flow of the home. In fact, it is important that Dad should view himself as a co-president of the family business. Families should be run just as effectively as a business.
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Fathers: Parent or Playmate Part 1
I have had many questions latelyasking if fathers should parent different andhow to help fatherbecome part of mother’s vision for the family. There are many different situations and personalities, so there areprobably many ways to treat each different relationship.I am going to share some of what I have learned about fathers and what I havedoneto
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Perspective And Self-Preservation
Dear Parents,
My son happened to lose his hat in the Air and Space Museum in DC. We didn’t find out that he had lost the NEW hat until we had been kicked out of the museum at closing time. It took me 30 minutes to find a guard that would break the rules and let me in to retrieve the hat. Luckily my daughter said that she knew exactly where he put it. After successfully tracking down the hat, at dinner time, in flaming heat. My husband seemed a little upset about the matter. He looked put out.
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Most Important For Church Classes
“For clarification, when I describe a child’s inappropriate behavior, do I stop there?
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Slow Down, Mom
FAMILY
I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
‘Oh excuse me please’ was my reply.
He said, ‘Please excuse me too;
I wasn’t watching for you.’
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said goodbye.
But at home a different story !
Criticism
Being over critical of things that don’t really matter, like table manners, personal grooming, age appropriate actions, and school grades tells the child that you don’t accept them for who they are or are trying to be.
Mission By Example
I was sitting on the couch today going over plans for our next trip when my six year old daughter, Londyn, sat down next to me and said, “We have to go to Virginia because you want to make the world better, don’t you? Not just our family, but other families too.” I said, “Yes” and smiled. I didn’t need to say anything else. It was very clear to me that she had developed an understanding of my mission. As a family, we talk about mission a lot. We try to analyze what other people’s missions might be. We talk about what kinds of skills we need to develop to find our personal mission
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