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. Thank you."

It sounds like your children don't have the Four Basics down. If you tell them to stop playing rough and being silly, that is a no answer. They need to either say OK and be OK with your answer, or ask to disagree appropriately. Review the the four basics in the Four Basics/Steps category at the right.

If you tell them that they need to do something and they don't say OK and do it or ask to disagree appropriately, then they are not following instructions. You should immediately go into a corrective teaching and they should earn whatever your family has determined is appropriate for a minor offense.

Stay consistent.

Note: There is a place for rough play. It is a healthy part of childhood. I just make sure that my children know that if they choose to play rough, then they could and might get hurt, so they need to be tough about whatever happens. They also know that if someone does get hurt, the natural consequence is that the rough play has to stop. I hada previous post about this. I think it was called "Fun".

Note #2: Play should never be rude or disrespectful. If your family is using sarcasm, or rude jokes about you or each other, as fun time, then your family might have lost sight of the family vision. These kinds of jokes are prideful and take the Spirit of love from your home. Even if they are in fun, the jokes still disconnect the family from each other.

Engaging in this kind of play or conversation is bad family relations. I would make a certain standard in the home for how you will speak to each other with love and respect and what sort of jokes are appropriate. They have probably seen someone joke that way before, and the person got laughs, so they want to be the funny ones and mimic the style of the other person. People who get in the habit of telling rude or sarcastic jokes are never respected and often find themselves in situations where people are angry at them or aren't comfortable around them. I wouldn't want that for my children, so I teach them how to communicate respectfully and appropriately. Psst! this has to be re-taught at different phases of development.

Keep Swimming, Nicholeen