This may not be profound to you but did you know that your children are their own indivuduals?! Shocking I know and sadly enough I have to remind myself of this from time to time. I get so caught up in doing what I want to do that I overlook the fact that they are people with their own thoughts and opinions and ideas too. Not my greatest attribute but being aware is the first step I guess... I'm working on it.
One of my tactics is to be okay with coming up with a compromise on things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of thing. For example Jaedon takes books to bed- another shocker right? ;) He doesn't take stuffed friends...he takes books. We set a limit on how many books he can take (like on a school night he can have 3) or else he'll stay awake until he looks at EVERY single page of EVERY single book. Here is how my plan begins to backfire. Jaedon will ask "How 'bout 6 books tonight?" Sure ok- no big deal- no school tomorrow- whatever. The next night "How 'bout 11 books tonight?" uhmm... k...?
So here's my question to you - how can I be non-authoritative and "demand" he does what I say because "I'm the big bad parent and I've laid the law about a silly rule about ... " and how do I just let things that really don't matter go WITHOUT the idea of compromise coming into EVERY other conversation. My dilemia is because I'm allowing "hashing out" at times- Jaedon thinks all conversations are fair game and there are just times that he needs to accept a decision has been made- end of story.
What works for you????
One of my tactics is to be okay with coming up with a compromise on things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of thing. For example Jaedon takes books to bed- another shocker right? ;) He doesn't take stuffed friends...he takes books. We set a limit on how many books he can take (like on a school night he can have 3) or else he'll stay awake until he looks at EVERY single page of EVERY single book. Here is how my plan begins to backfire. Jaedon will ask "How 'bout 6 books tonight?" Sure ok- no big deal- no school tomorrow- whatever. The next night "How 'bout 11 books tonight?" uhmm... k...?
So here's my question to you - how can I be non-authoritative and "demand" he does what I say because "I'm the big bad parent and I've laid the law about a silly rule about ... " and how do I just let things that really don't matter go WITHOUT the idea of compromise coming into EVERY other conversation. My dilemia is because I'm allowing "hashing out" at times- Jaedon thinks all conversations are fair game and there are just times that he needs to accept a decision has been made- end of story.
What works for you????
4 comments:
Meg at that age was JUST like Jaedon! What we ended up doing is giving her multiple choices in the situation- with us not feeling strongly about whichever one she picked. For example: Meg, it's time for bed. I know that you want to still stay up but it's getting late. Here are your choices: You can stay up for 10 more minutes of playing, but only take ONE book to bed, or you can go to bed now and take FIVE books to bed. Either way, we didn't care what she chose, and we were helping her learn how to weigh choices and make decisions :-) (so far I think she's turned out OK :-)
hey! sam definitely needs to know who is in charge (not him) =) so we've had to be pretty authoritative; HOWEVER, trying to understand that he DOES have thoughts and feelings of his own is important. with watching tv in the morning during breakfast, we've just set down a rule (tuesdays and thursdays are breakfast and tv days, all the others are breakfast at the table days). when it comes time to ask "can i watch tv while i eat breakfast?" we just talk about what day it is and what we've decided ahead of time. maybe you could apply that idea to bedtime and number of books?? certain days of the week are lots of books days (like friday night or whatever)...school nights are one book days?? hope that helps! =)
starting off with an observation... just when you think you've got it figured out with #1, #2 (or 5 or 8...) will throw a wrench in the gears... like you said, they are all individuals.
what i try and do as they get older and can listen to reason is to remind them of reality... "you know, J, last night you asked for an exception to our rule and Mama said yes. Do you know what an exception is? It is a change that we make only once in a while... like once every couple of weeks. Tonight, you are asking for an even bigger exception, and that makes me feel like you don't really want to obey me and that makes me frustrated..." That sort of thing works really well with one of ours.
Another strategy (for another kid) is asking "Why, J should we make an exception to our rule tonight, especially after we did so last night?"
We also (again, with a different child), like Jeff and Elizabeth said, remind them that if they want to choose to take more books, they have to choose to head to their bed earlier, because the lights out time isn't negotiable.
All of that to say that I first need to figure out why I'm responding in a way that I do... determine why the child is doing what they are doing and then come up with a response that meets their individual design and needs... and not mine, if that makes sense.
Sometimes I'm much more successful than at other times - and I'm coming off a string of several "unsuccessful" parenting weeks.. *sigh*
Wow...that's tough, for sure! Too many choices can be overwhelming, but two or three should do it. I struggle with this also...especially if there is whining (who, my girls?) involved. Usually, their choices are 1) do what I asked right now; 2) get a spank, and then do what I asked right now. I'm still working on it...
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