“I’m having trouble figuring out what behavior is
“normal” for my 4- and 8-year-old boys, what chores I can expect them
to be able to perform, and what kinds of rewards and consequences
work for the different ages. Is there a good book you can suggest?
Or is that something I need to tailor for my own boys (i.e.
What should I expect? Read More »
“You mention in “Intensive Teaching/Rule of Three that if a child is
“out of instructional control”, that if the child chooses not to
follow an instruction, he/she “…
Out of Instructional control behavior Read More »
Tonight as I was sending my children off to bed, I felt like something was missing. Then the words of Gene Cook came to mind. He related in his book “Raising up a Family to the Lord” how he noticed that even his big children loved to get tucked in. That is what was missing. After our story and prayer, I had just sent the children off to bed quick because it was getting so late.
I immediately stopped what I was doing and went to the bedrooms of all my children and gave them all kisses, hugs, and sang them songs. This relationship building second is more important than all of the praise
Our family culture involves lots of music time. It is a huge focus for all of us. My older two children both spend lots of time singing, and playing piano. They have a special music mentor who helps them excel in these areas.
Their music mentor has spoken with me many times about how my daughter needs to be doing musical theatre. No comment could make me more happy. 🙂 I love musicals. I own just about every musical there is. My father was a play director, when I was young, and directed a musical every year. From a very young age, I was put in these productions. Musical theatre i
Do Less…..Our Victory! Read More »
“My son has ADHD…My main concerns are the impulsiveness…and the fighting with his brothers- he literally cannot walk past without hitting them, punching them, teasing them. Car rides can be a real nightmare. (The therapist says “just leave him home sometime”— yah- he’s 6 years old, I can’t just leave him home alone, and leaving him with a neighbor would reward him for misbehaving in the car- ugg). Needless to say- we stay home a lot.”
I have had many youth, with many impulses, come to live with me. Each one is uniquely diff
Impulsivness, ADHD and consequences Read More »
“I have been reading your website and listening to your CD’s and practicing what I’ve learned from you. It has helped tremendously with the level of peace in our home. A situation occurred last night with my 12 y/o which has me a bit stymied. He was at a church camp-out and playing flag football with some other boys. One boy in particular has given him trouble on and off through the two years we have lived here. This boy will slap my son and then say it was a joke, yell at hi
Fighting with non-family members Read More »
“In your house, what are the privileges that are taken away when they lose ‘everything’ for 24 hours? At what age can they understand that? Or, what do you do with very little ones who are testing boundaries (and throwing fits) but can’t really do chores or understand losing things? I don’t know if my 29 month old could put the two together, behavior wise. I can’t really make him do chores or lose privileges as a teaching tool for him, but I do see him disobeying on purpose to test me. My almost-4 year old could understand losing privileges as a consequence, but I don’t
What consequences do small children earn? Read More »
“I’ve just been wondering about how to respond appropriately when my children get hurt. I don’t want to be unsympathetic or cruel, but how do you respond if it’s something you have pointed out they shouldn’t do or they might get hurt, or they are disobeying a rule (like not running in the house or not jumping on/off furniture) and they get hurt doing it anyway? What about when they get hurt because of a sibling or other child hitting or misbehaving? What about when it’s just an accident? I’ve noticed that around some people, children seem to try to “milk” the situation when t
Enjoy all that the children are and do. Interact a lot with them. Play! They grow too fast to waste any time. I have spent too many days trying to be “productive” in my life, and missed the really important things. I have promised myself not to do that any more. Why would I choose to miss memories and bonding, just for sleep or, getting things done on some check off list? I decided I was in charge, not some list, and I wasn’t going to miss the fun any more.
This is just a thought I had today, and felt it was worth shari
There are some great questions in some of the recent comments.
“…Most women I know are neglecting taking care of themselves on some level (physical or spiritual) to take care of their families or other obligations. Personally, I have been struggling lately to try to find some time for myself on a daily basis for things like scripture-reading, exercise, personal study time, and maybe a nap (I’m pregnant and tired!).
Time for Mom & Toddlers who won’t rest Read More »
Tomorrow our family has to leave early for the day. While driving the car tonight I realized that we didn’t have any gas, and if we had to get gas tomorrow morning, we would probably end up running late for our appointments. So, I decided to take some time this evening to re-fuel the car. As I was standing at the pump, I realized that I am not much different than a car. I also need re-fueling from time to time in order to be a happy, healthy mom; the kind of mom that can keep running all day. We all need a little time to re-fuel on a regular basis. I used to take a whole day each m
“Some of my kids have developed bad habits such as finger-sucking, nose picking (and eating it), fingernail chewing, and touching their genitals. Do you have any experience or advice on helping children successfully break these kinds of habits? Some of my children have started doing such things from the time they are babies (finger-sucking), or have developed the habits a little later at around age 3 or so. And one daughter in particular seems particularly prone to this type of thing (she’s eight now).”
I did have some youth who had behaviors which are not social
We close the end of each day with a prayer as a family. This is a time of reverence and quiet. Tonight my four year old son was a little bit hyper. Normally as soon as prayer begins everyone is silent and part of the moment, so we began prayer. During the prayer he started laughing and joking. He thought that he was pretty funny. This kind of behavior is considered disrespectful and is inappropriate for this time of day.
After the prayer I noticed that my son wasn’t in any mood to be taught yet, so I told him to go sit on time out for a few minutes.
When he finished with time out
Look “em” in the eyes Read More »
“On your CDs you mention coming up with three predetermined consequences–a minor consequence, a major consequence, and a big whammy, but throughout the presentations it sounded like you gave examples of more than three consequences (1-extra chore, 2-loss of snack privileges, 3-24 hours of working/no privileges, 4-SODAS, 5-major maintenance). I was a little confused since all the consequences you mentioned sounded like they were ones you had predetermined (not just ones that you’d agreed on in a family meeting to deal with other issues). Do you have more than three predetermine
Effective use of consequences Read More »
“I have listened to the cd’s from your mini-seminar at our LDSEHE conference. I am so amazed at your system! I can see how it would work wonderfully in my home – especially with my 3 older children. My fourth child is turning 2 Saturday. I love her! She is so cute and so smart and very spirited. She is my first screamer squealer and it is driving me bananas! Especially in the car. I don’t feel she can be reasoned with but she does understand some of what I say. How would you recommend teaching her that screaming and squealing is not part of our vision!
For Crying out Loud ~Screaming Read More »
“My husband and I are listening to your CDs. We’ve heard you speak a few times but never got the whole thing before. Your CDs are definitely an answer to prayer. I’ve tried for a long time to figure out how to get my husband on board, but he always gets so BORED, lol! After listening to the first CD, I realized that I’m definitely the big dreamer/big picture/live for the moment type, and he’s the line drive/details/planner type – no wonder my efforts didn’t work. I had a big picture but no good details on how we were going to get there. Having the CDs gives my husband
The number one mission Read More »
“How do you take away all privileges from younger kids? My 3.5 year old is really pushing… This post was the first time I really understood the “lose all privileges for 24 hours” thing. I can figure out how to do that with my 6 and 8 year olds, but the younger ones, I just can’t see it. Can you give me a visual please?
Should 3 year old lose privileges for 24 hours too? Read More »
True Story from my life: I share this story with youth when I present “Scholar Warriors ~ The Not So Secret Weapon” I will be presenting this to a group of Ogden, Utah youth tomorrow morning.
“How do you go about rewarding the kids who did not lose privileges in a way that the child who chose to lose his privileges looks at his own behavior as the cause of him missing out, instead of just feeling like mom is out to get him and wants him to be sad? Even though I try to point out how the child is the one that made the choice, I have one kid in particular that only becomes bitter about these kinds of things and feels like we are happy when he gets into trouble and doesn’t get to have things. Part of this may be due to how we have handled things in the past, trying to p
What do you do when…? Read More »
In the post below titled Honesty, I said that there is an article already written on the subject. Some people have had a hard time accessing it.
Type communicating honestly into the search bar at your top right. Then some samples of blogs associated with honesty should come up. Find “Communicating Honestly” and then click the title. This should show you the whole entry. Sorry if I was confusing.
Nicholeen
