Earnest Parenting » Discipline

Vocabulary is Important in Parenting

Amy LeForge — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:52:29 +0000

I’ve long been fond of the Love and Logic approach to parenting, mainly because of its focus on putting responsibility on children instead of the parents. By that I mean that children get to learn naturally from their mistakes at a young age. One of the keys to success in this approach is for the parent to not get into power struggles or long arguments with children. In other words, the saying “less is more” applies here.

I happen to be pretty good with words, but this often translates into….

Read the rest at I’m Adding Hmm to My Vocabulary over at GNMParents.

photo credit: pdinnen

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A Little Hard Work Never Hurt Anyone

Amy LeForge — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:45:29 +0000

A theme I keep coming back to in this blog is the disconnect between my work ethic and the boys’.

I am a workaholic. Plain and simple, I’d rather be pursuing a task than sitting still. The older I get, the more I want to be completing things.

Don’t tell the boys, but I’ve been harboring evil thoughts of getting rid of the TV lately. Turn that idiot box on, and they all melt into lumps around it, oblivious to their surroundings.

And then there is the perennial schoolwork argument. They tell me daily that the work is too much, they can’t do it, this is too hard, yada yada yada. There are a couple of problems with said argument. First: if there happens to be a day in which they’re self-motivated to finish, they do all their work easily and in about half the time I have allotted. Second: the work they complain about is almost always something they’ve learned (I don’t assign work that they don’t know how to do). Third: any time I make something easier, it takes them only a short while to forget that is easier and the complaining begins again.

Basically, it’s a continual slouch toward the lowest common denominator. Which drives me crazy.

I’ve wondered if I’m just over-expecting. Maybe I was this unmotivated in life at this age. So I asked my mom, and nope; I was a fairly hard worker back then as well. Yes, I needed reminders and I do remember getting into trouble at various points in life for not doing my job. I was far from perfect.

And I don’t need perfect from the boys. I just want effort. I don’t want to listen to people whine and even cry over being asked to do the basics. I don’t want to hear “Come onnnnnn!!!” shouted or even growled when I lay out the expectations of the day. No joke: people get upset at me when I announce that we have to go to the store to buy food. As if going to buy food that THEY will eat is some kind of inconvenience.

The part that I dislike the most is having to break out the tough girl voice just to get them to cooperate. Is it wrong to want them to just cooperate because they know that’s what is expected? How about wanting them to aspire to be the best that they can be? I know it’s human nature to want to slouch some of the time. But all of the time?? Give me a break.

I had the battle again this morning with the younger boys. Captain Earthquake has developed a very negative attitude about his math facts, to the point that he’s talked himself out of knowing addition facts we’ve practiced for two years now. It’s completely attitudinal. But how do you explain that to a seven year old?

I’m going to ask Hubby to make me a sign in PhotoShop that says “Hard Work Never Hurt Anyone”. Then I’m going to take it to the store and have a poster made to hang in our school area. And I guess I’ll have to keep my tough-girl voice limbered up.

I am NOT going to lose this battle.

photo credit: GollyGforce -swamped at work til 8/15

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Tweaking the Plan Can Reduce Parental Stress

Amy LeForge — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:30:44 +0000

There are a lot of things that mystify me when it comes to my boys; the need to destroy-ahhh, I mean disassemble everything they touch, the constant violence, persistent bathroom humor…ugh. The biggest difficulty has been our differences regarding work. I think work is good. They do not.

It’s as simple as that, really. Unfortunately, I fear that if they don’t lose that particular ‘tude they’re going to be in for a world of hurt upon entering the work world.

Reality can be painful.

Plus? I’ve been more than a little frustrated with how much supervision and nagging seems to be required to get them to finish their work. I’m getting to that point in the summer when I look around and see more work than there is time or manpower to finish, and I’m stuck babysitting boys through work I want to trust them to finish.

Today again: disappointment. I checked in in how much grammar work has been finished and one boy was behind.

Not finishing his work but claiming that he has? Dishonest. I’m tired of being lied to.

I don’t want to send them off to public school, but if there’s not some kind of change in their behavior, that’s what will happen. I can’t live in constant anger or disappointment.

It used to be the case that Hubby would come home to me freaking out over their lack of work ethic. That’s happened less and less of late, but when he got home Monday it was the same old story. “I just don’t know what else to do,” I told him.

We talked. I expressed my frustration. Eventually, the new plan emerged. We’ve recently adopted a really neat allowance strategy. The (older) boys were getting $5 per week supposedly for doing chores on a list. Except that they were only doing said chores when an adult bugged them about it and followed them around making sure the work was done. Same frustration, different theme.

Effective immediately, everyone has received a pay cut. Allowance for the week is $3.50 (the younger boys have their own structure; they get less because they’re younger). IF the boys do their chores daily AND have an adult sign the checklist DAILY, then they can get a bonus amount and have their accustomed-to five dollars. If any of the conditions is failed, then they only get the base amount of $3.50.

It’s taken some time, but they’re finally understanding the system (read: paying attention to the explanations given ad nauseam). The Mercenary just heard me today on the whole “you have to get it signed before bed or no cash” thing. Heh, heh, heh. Boy did he ever jump to get his chore list and bring it to me.

The other major tweak was this: they have a deadline of 2:00 pm daily to get their schoolwork and chores done. If they miss the deadline, then any and all screens are off for the day. I’m sure we’ll have to live through a missed deadline before they take me seriously. But at least now I feel like I don’t have to nag. If they miss the time, boohoo for them. I’m busy doing my work.

Yes, I could have done this before, but for some reason it just hasn’t worked. I couldn’t figure out how to put the responsibility on them, and got frustrated with the constant chasing them around thing. I’m so thankful for the friend who recommended tying the signed chore list to money. It’s helping a lot.

Now if I could just get the older boys to do their grammar.

photo credit: brainblogger

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That’ll Be Five Dollars, Please

Amy LeForge — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 06:07:22 +0000

I think I found a solution to the “one wrong deserves another” problem today.

The Manager was the first boy up this morning, taking out the dog. He quickly delivered her to snuggle with the older boys and headed back to bed, which is where I found him when I got up. We’re trying to keep to a schedule these days, so I started rousting boys right after 8:00.

There were moans and groans of, “I don’t wanna get up” as I cheerfully opened shades and rattled around the room. My next stop was the older boys’ room. The dog was actually the easiest to wake, and even she stretched and crept back under the blankets, hoping I’d leave. As I was talking to TechnoBoy and rubbing his back, Captain Earthquake walked in smiling at the puppy. It was clear he had entered to greet her for the day.

TechnoBoy had no more than raised his head from his pillow when he noticed the younger boy in the room and immediately squawked, “GET OUT!!” I tried to stop him and entreated him to be kind, but he replied that the younger boys don’t let him in their room, so he’s not letting them in his.

Ugh.

This happens a lot: the claim that one person can do something wrong because someone else has. There have not been words to express the depth of my hatred for this claim. (side note: I’m especially unfond of the whole thing because Captain Earthquake got hurt and upset and spent several hours being quite unreasonable. This is a separate problem, and one we’re working on; going from cheery to Oscar the Grouch in 3 seconds flat is not a pleasure. If TechnoBoy had been kind, it’s possible we’d have had a happy morning. Possibly….)

It’s not very Love and Logic-y of me, but I have spent countless minutes talking to the boys about the importance of kindness and how Hubby and I are not going to accept that answer as reasonable.

Success rate on that one? Yeah, not so much.

I’ve been working very super duper hard this week at being balanced and pleasant. I’ve had about a 95% success rate so far. Which is downright miraculous. I usually get irritated with them over something or another every day. So how to be pleasant when they’re doing something I actually despise?

Around about breakfast time (after two or three other arguments between boys who were a bit CRANKY), inspiration struck. I told the boys that if they want to use the “he did it, so I can” excuse, they were more than welcome. But that will cost $5. Immediately. And if they don’t have the money on hand, they will drop everything they’re doing and do five dollars worth of chores. And if I can’t come up with five dollars worth of chores for them to do, well, then heaven help them.

I’m going to call this a Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is strategy.

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Teach Lessons More Effectively Without Warning

Amy LeForge — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:58:57 +0000

I am the Queen of Warning, married to the King of Warning. If the boys are on the wrong track, we both like to correct them. However, this is not conducive to the Love and Logic technique of letting kids mess up to learn lessons. So! I’m trying not to give warnings. Last week, we had an interesting situation develop around piano lessons. Here’s a snippet:

Normally I go and try to get them back on track by reminding them of their job and warning that they’ll suffer (insert consequence here-today it was lost friend time) if they don’t straighten up.

This time, I didn’t do it. I stopped myself from walking over to the office and instead focused on younger boys’ work. When it was time to go to piano lessons I initiated departure procedures.

Boy were they upset! The shock and betrayal… it was impressive.

Want to hear the end of the story? Click on over to GNMParents to read my new anti-warning effort.

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