Using TSG Skills

Effective use of consequences

“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

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For Crying out Loud ~Screaming

“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!

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Should 3 year old lose privileges for 24 hours too?

“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?

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What do you do when…?

“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

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Honesty

“I have two boys ages 7 and 4.  My 7yo has developed a couple problems: stealing and lying.  I think that I/we have been making the problem worse in the way we have handled it.  We also have a HUGE problem with not minding.  He is a very stubborn child and will not help us when trying to come up with consequences for his actions.  He says either, “I don’t know” or “give me a spanking” or something like that.  Those are NOT working, he seems to get worse with each consequence.

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I hear you!

“I can understand this, mom! I have a 7 year old who pretty much spent most of his first 5 years in timeout. About 2 years ago, I attended one of Nicholeen’s seminars. We decided to implement the losing of privileges in our family and had a family meeting. We were VERY consistent with this one child that was acting up the most, and today he is one of the most well-behaved! This was no easy task on our part by any means, but it worked. He probably had to lose privileges 15-20 times over the course of a year (yeah, he was a stubborn one) but he doesn’t anymore.

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Mom’s hang-up

“Thanks so much for all the wisdom and inspiration you share.  I have a son (age 11) who zapps so much emotional energy from me.  Over the last several months, I’ve really been trying to see things as they are and trying to determine how to handle things.  He is a great kid.  He’s the first one to help a younger sibling who is hurt or to give up his ice cream cone is one of his younger siblings dropped theirs.  He is also the one who complains the most, rolls his eyes back into his head and gets “that look” when things do not go his way.  I know that he is often “out of instructi

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Using the Rule of Three

“Another question I had was, does the rule of 3 start over for each incident? Are the 3 consequences for staying out of instructional control as relating to the first incident? I just want to make sure I understand correctly. So if a child hits his brother, and gets out of instructional control and has the consequences for that earlier in the day, and then later disobeys about something different, the rule of 3 would start over for the later incident, correct? Consequences aren’t cumulative for different offenses, so that because the child got to SODAS with hitting his brothe

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Should I Medicate?

“Help! I’ve been browing your website for a couple of days. Trying to find some answers- If I had the $ I’d be sending for the cd’s. But it’s not in the budget right now. I’m totally at my wits end with my 6 yr old.

I don’t know what else to do. He is ADHD- We’ve had him in with a counselor, and I have an appointment to talk about meds this afternoon. I don’t want to do meds for adhd, but I have to try something, because everything I’ve tried isn’t working. He’s only 6! I really don’t want to do meds, but I don’t know what else to try.

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Too many reminders?

“With young children like my 3 yr old, I am very tempted to give at least one reminder, another chance, before they get a consequence.  So if he starts to whine and say no to an instruction, I remind him of each of the steps and encourage him to do them.  Is this teaching him that it is ok to whine first and not to start out with the appropriate response?  Or is it just pre-teaching?  Is there a limit to how many times pre-teaching should happen?  How can I tell if I am trying to govern him or just pre-teaching and giving him a chance to understand what choice he is making?”

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Fights? continued

“…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 victim and one was more of a perpetrator (based on what you can deduct from their stories)?  I guess I am wondering if there is a purpose to hearing their stories other than letting them feel heard and calm down, or if the content of their stories re

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Fights?

“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 what would happen if I let my kids continue to fight until it blows over or comes to blows, I usually step in and separate them before I can see how they would solve the problem.  I know they are generally out of instructional control when they are fighting, so anything I tell them at that poi

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Respectful play

“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 each other or at me. What do you do when you ask them to do something in a kind, yet serious way, and they say “no” or laugh and joke around? I feel like they are showing no respect for me in this situation and I get very frustrated and even angry.

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A comment

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 read all the advice here so I can “keep swimming” and not give up. I keep thinking of your words on the CD that it takes work to set this up and we have to be willing to do the hard work. I know it is worth it. It has already made a big difference, I just need to keep trying and improving.

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All at once?

“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 head and heart.  My question to you is this:  How do you start from scratch with a houseful of kids?  I have 9 kiddos ages 12 to 9 mo.  They are really good kids, but I’ve learned that I have done then a huge injustice by the way I’ve been parenting them.  I am ready to change and increase the love and spi

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AngryBoy

Strong Willed 3 Year Old

“I’m trying to figure out how to make this work for my 3 year old. He is very high spirited, very defiant and REALLY can’t take no for an answer. I struggle minute to minute with obedience and with whining and I worry that if I did things the same way I do them with my older children, only using time-outs, he would be in time-out constantly. Actually I don’t know if he would ever make it into time out if I waited for him to be calm first.

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