To use tabs, please use full web version. I believe the goal of parenting is to give my children the skills to become self-sufficient physically, socially, and spiritually. As I try a new technique I ask myself, is this teaching my child how to make good choices? Is she learning to ask God what the correct choice is? My goal is that my girls will be able to fully function as God's servants and become strong leaders for positive change.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Love and Logic -Trials and Successes
Post your stories about a "Love and Logic" technique you tried with your family. Did it work for you? What might you do differently? I recommend this before you read the one for early childhood. I had trouble understanding the second book which was written by a different author.
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Right now I am awful at comming up with choices. Usually I ask my daughter if she wants to do something with the only possible answers as yes or no. Then it is left to her imagination as to what other options are available. The other thing I tend to do is say, "You can do this or get in trouble?" So what should I say? Today I asked, "Do you want to do this now or in 5 minutes?" That worked for her, but for me I want to control her life instead of letting a 4 year old make the decisions. But ultimately she holds the cards anyway, because the unspoken 3rd option was that I could demand that she do it now and she would kick and scream and go to her room for 5 minutes and end up taking just as long, but we would both be mad at each other.
ReplyDeleteI also have a problem giving the choices after she complains about something. Today Mia complained that she didn't like the cookie I gave her. I had to calm her down first and then give her the choice between the oatmeal cookie or the baby cookie. I chose to do that because I'm still practicing giving choices. I think my open-ended choices is one of my leadership problems as well. It seems kind of wishy-washy to say, "Do you want to do this?" I liked when I said, "Do you want to have a cookie with me or play by yourself?"
Now I know that even though Jim Fay says don't explain too much, we are supposed to explain what the two choices are and that we will be drained if the child doesn't obey and much more explaining before the child makes a choice. After the meltdown starts...it's too late!
ReplyDeleteI didn't choose to say "bummer" as my signal for the child being in trouble at first, but after several other words and phrases that haven't worked for me, I finally switched because I never say "bummer" in regular speech. Now the kids know that when I say that, there will be a consequence.
ReplyDeleteIn my “Love and Logic” class last week the lesson was to think of your child’s mistake as a good thing. “That’s crazy!” I thought. “I can’t see my child’s mistake as a learning opportunity for them, because I’m too worried that I won’t teach the lesson correctly.” What I found as I tried this new mentality is that I was so worried about getting my reaction right, and planning an appropriate consequence, that I couldn’t feel happy about her learning opportunity! Today I was so mad that she once again showed she couldn’t be trusted with my things that I couldn’t think of a good consequence right then. I guess I should have put her in time out first and did this next part too. I told her I couldn’t think of a consequence right then, but I was very sad she can’t be trusted and I’ll let her know the consequence later. Once I did this I thought, “This is great! Now I can be excited about her learning a lesson from this!” I think I’ll make the consequence twofold. I will have her pay for the damage and make a new rule that she can no longer touch my things. We will keep the rule one week and reassess her responsibility level at that time.
ReplyDeleteHow can I stop feeling so angry or react so passionately when my child messes up? When we get upset at our kids, it stems from our sense of responsibility over them. When we get upset at other things in our life, we just need to trust God. But there is a legitimate reason for being upset when we are responsible to change the situation, such as when we are the parent.
ReplyDeleteIf you yell at the child you will cause their brain to go into “fight or flight” mode. I find that even if I yell first, but say a signal word like “bummer” with an empathetic tone right away, my kids’ brains can still think logically. If I yell at them more than just their name, they freeze like a deer in the headlights. I was worried that if I sounded too nice about the consequence, it wouldn’t be effective. But now they know I will be consistent with giving a consequence whenever I say, “bummer” and my consequence is very effective in deterring the behavior. My friend taught me to make the timer or the rule the bad guy and the child’s poor choice the reason for the consequence. When we act sad that the child has a negative consequence, we put ourselves on the same side as our child. The child sees us as being with him instead of against him. Another positive result from this empathetic word, is that we learn to stop getting so upset! Bring calm into ourselves and our family by reserving yelling as an expression of our emotion, but not as a reaction to a behavior. You’ve probably been taught to say, “I feel mad!” instead of “You made me mad!” in some annoying psychology class. Well, it’s not rubbish, it’s true.