After snack time one sunny afternoon, I asked Soren to bring his dirty cup to the sink. "Please put it over on my side, where I'm washing dishes," I added. "The dishes in the other sink are clean and waiting to be rinsed." He picked up his cup, brought it over to the rinse sink, turned it upside-down, and held it that way while it dripped milk all over a bowl I had just washed. I was furious. I grabbed his arm and just about to swat him on the butt and snap at him when I remembered: choose love over fear, Rach. So instead I took a deep breath and said, "Soren, you got milk all over that bowl. Now you're going to have to wash the bowl again." He whined a little but put the bowl in the sink and wiped it out. He tried to walk away at that but I told him he needed to put it back in the other sink. He was being all weird and whiny about that, too, which (again) angered me. I resisted the urge to yell, took another deep breath, and said, "Here. I'll help you." Then I took his hands in my hands and helped him put the bowl in the rinsing sink. His response? "Oh! That's where you wanted me to put it!" He hadn't known what I meant.
Had I not stepped back and remembered to show love to my little guy, this situation probably would have resulted in a huge scene, because that's the way these things go with him. There would have been a big, hairy scene where I dragged him to his bedroom and he pummeled the door angrily while howling furiously. But because I was able to step back and choose love, I was able to teach rather than punish. He didn't 'get away' with anything and our good relationship stayed in tact. Win/win!
So this week we're building on our foundation of choosing love over fear by implementing our Respectful Choices Poster.
The Chart includes:
1) The Rules (ours are simply: 1-Be Responsible, 2-Be Respectful, and 3-Be Obedient).
2) The Flowchart (Click on the tab above. I'm too lazy to link right now.)
The most important part of this is simply reviewing the chart as a family every day. It will seem repetitious and your kids will probably be all, "Mom, seriously, I get it. Stop." But I find that coming back to something like this every day helps everyone re-center focus and remember what we're trying to accomplish as a family.
In the coming weeks, we'll work on teaching some of the skills that are needed in order to be able to make respectful choices with each other-- things like disagreeing respectfully, doing things even when you don't want to, using "positive time-outs," resisting the urge to give multiple chances or to nag, and other awesomely respectful things. We'll start really focusing on those things next week, so do what you can for now-- but don't beat yourself up if you're not doing awesomely at that stuff yet.
So without further ado:
This week's Awesome Parenting Plan:
1) Have another family meeting. Introduce the Respectful Choices chart. Teach about your Character Quality. Give compliments to each other. Again, don't worry about doing skills training or an agenda yet.
2) Review The Poster together each day.
3) Keep track of your points. I totally forgot to do that this week so don't feel bad if you didn't track yours either. Just do it this week! Like reviewing the Respectful Choices Chart together daily, this is a great way to refocus your efforts and remember what you're trying to do as a parent. Again, don't stress out if you're not getting tons of points. We're focusing on one thing at a time here. When we start to emphasize the other things, we'll all start getting more points.
4) Check in on Facebook! Tell us how it's going! Me and Pam like each other, but we won't to hear about how things are going for all of ya'll too! I don't want any more of that cricket-chirping that's been going on out there in the Facebook-o-sphere.
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