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Using TSG Skills

Christmas Character Building

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Samuel Smiles said, “Worst of all are the grumblers and growlers at fortune–who find that whatever is, is wrong,” or not enough.

Quiet a few years ago, we had a Christmas day that changed all the Christmas days to come.  We had a nice large Christmas with lots of presents for the children.  The children opened their presents, and then the grandparents came over with gifts.  After opening a present from a grandparent, one of my children said, “Is that all?” 

I about died!  Not only was this a huge social no-no, but my child was behaving very selfishly and that was unacceptable.  This kin

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Learning from the Dutch

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 Before the United States of America even existed, there were these colonies of many different people from different lands.  One of these colonies was called New Amsterdam.  The Dutch people settled this colony.  They were a happy people who enjoyed life.  The king of the Netherlands left the New Amsterdam colony to govern itself, and for a while they did OK.  They made good roads and homes and a popular sea port.  The port of New Amsterdam was one of the biggest trade centers in America. 

After a while of governing themselves, and having no real rules, the citizens of New Amsterdam became

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Time-out for youngsters tip

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One more tip for making time-out effective.

If your son doesn’t say OK to anything, take him to time-out.  If you say NO, and he whines, he goes to time-out.  If you tell him to do something, and he doesn’t say, OK, he goes to time-out.  If he hurts another person, he goes to time-out.  He needs to get really used to going to time-out.  The more he goes, the more he will recognize that time-out is the place to calm down and then talk, and that the sooner he does that the sooner life is good again. 

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Out of Control on Time-out

2 Comments / All, Relationships, Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills /

“My almost 3 yo fights and kicks and cries when I take him to time-out (I have to carry him there), and then cries very loudly and even will scream at me when I’m telling him that he needs to stay there until he can become happy.  My husband thinks all of this is very disrespectful and feels that we need to spank him or do something different so that my son doesn’t do this.  He thinks I am teaching my son that it’s okay to fight me and scream at me.  What do you think?”

I understand your husband’s frustration, and yours.  Your child is definitely “out of instruction

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Pre-teaching small children how to go to bed when asked

1 Comment / All, Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills /

“I met you at your recent Stansbury Seminar.  It was so great!  I could have listened for days.  I can’t get my daughter to stop sleeping in my bed.  She is three years old, and I don’t think she should still be sleeping in my bed.  No matter what I do, she has a fit if I try to enforce her sleeping in her own bed. “

Children wanting to share their parent’s bed is a very normal childhood desire.  When I was young, I remember thinking that my parent’s bed was softer, warmer, and just more cozy than my bed was. It is good that our children want to be close to us, but

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My neighbors fight with my children…friend problems

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My children love playing with the kids next door, but it seems that the neighbor kids do something rude/unkind every few weeks (or more often).  I’m not naive enough to believe that my kids are always totally without blame, but I am good friends with mother of these kids, and she has told me several times that this is pretty normal behavior for her kids and that my kids don’t act like that.  My kids (8 yo girl, 7 yo boy) have learned to pretty much just expect rude comments and behavior from the 9 yo neighbor boy and don’t have a lot to do with him anymore, but the 8 yo old girl

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Dealing with Friends part 4

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How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”?

The most importantskill you can teach your child is how to determine what is right and what is wrong and how to choose right and stay away from wrong. This is the whole reason children need parents. If my child can’t match his outfits, doesn’t know how to do mathematics well, never changes his bed sheets, ortalks with his mouth full, it doesn’t really matter at all if he has mastered how to discern between what is right and what is wrong and chooses to follow right.

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Dealing with Friends part 3

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How do you help your children respond appropriately to unkind behavior and deal with conflicts? 

I am assuming this question is referring to conflicts with friends and not siblings, although the conflicts aren’t too much different.  In fact, in most cases if we all treated each other like friends instead of siblings, we would all be much nicer to each other.  For some reason, most people treat strangers, and friends way better than fami

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Dealing with Friends part 2

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 “How do these things change as your children get older?”

Too much friend time makes children selfish.  Children who are around peers too often start to think more about their peers than their family.  This focus on self encourages them to with draw from family. 

If children have limited contact with peers when they are young, they will most likely not become dependent upon having friends around for their happiness.  The last thing I want is a child who thinks that their happiness comes from something or someone else.  Happiness comes from inside us all, and for

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Dealing with Friends

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How often do your children play with friends, and under what conditions?  How do these things change as your children get older?  How do you help your children respond appropriately to unkind behavior and deal with conflicts?  How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”?

These great questions about friends will take a few days to answer.  The answer to the first question is below. 

“How often do your children play wi

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But she won’t do it!

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“What do you do if a child is punished with a chore and they refuse to do it (no matter how much time you spend in the same room with the child)?  Child in question is 8 years old.”

This sounds like a cause of much frustration in the home.  I can imagine in would be. 

One person can’t MAKE another person want to follow an instruction.  Each person has the responsibility to decide for herself. 

That said, this is how I look at this situation.  If a child earns a negative consequence, I do a corrective teaching (see steps).  If the child will not accept the cons

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Screaming part 2

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On September 11th I wrote a post titled “For Crying out Loud ~ Screaming”  This was the first screaming post.  I am now adding another part to screaming, because I have another question. 

My almost-5-year-old has always been a screamer.  He screams this 

high-pitched, shrill, grating scream whenever he doesn’t like 

something that’s going on — which is often.  This screaming pushes 

my buttons like nothing else does.  I HATE it, and I’m afraid I’ve 

reacted to it too strongly and too wrongly, for too long.

So, is this kind of screaming a normal thing for a kid before he ge

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Impulsivness, ADHD and consequences

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 “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

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What consequences do small children earn?

1 Comment / All, Toddlers (0-4), Using TSG Skills /

 “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

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I’m hurt Mom…

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“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

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Time for Mom & Toddlers who won’t rest

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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!).

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Bad Habits

Leave a Comment / All, Children (4-10), Using TSG Skills, Youth (10-18) /

“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

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Look “em” in the eyes

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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

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