I've finally had to confront my own laziness when it comes to parenting. To give you a picture of life as of late, let me first begin by saying that there have been very few October-blue-sky days this month. We've had rain, rain, and more rain, with a few really cold days sprinkled in (this morning, I noticed that our "waterproofed" basement has puddles where the water seeped up through the foundation...nice). So we've been stuck inside a lot, and my resolve to keep movie watching and computer time to a minimum has weakened. Benjamin has been pushing me to see how far I'll go with a lot of other things too. I've had to remind him dozens of times each day not to injure Peter in any way, and simple requests that I make lead to massive meltdowns and temper tantrums. It's been sort of maddening.
This week during preschool, the parents met in a breakout session to learn about discipline. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, and I've already seen huge results. I was the problem.
I decided to go against my nature, and make a schedule. I blocked each hour of the day for an activity, like music/exercise time, scripture time, learning time, creative time, cleaning time, and so forth. And it's worked so far! Benjamin loves the structure, and it's been nice to have the schedule to rely on, and not try to come up with stuff for him to do in the heat of the moment when he just wants to watch another movie. It's taking me a while, but I'm learning...
9 comments:
Sigh. I need your discipline class. I'm down to buying used parenting books off the internet. Think we'll figure this parenting thing out before they leave the house? I hope so!
And the thing is, once you think you have it figured out for one child, another one comes along who requires completely different tactics. And then they enter new stages and everything changes again. Sure keeps us humble, doesn't it?
Speaking of entering new stages, I feel like I'm entering one now. Won't go into detail, but what the heck? How come all of a sudden Anna's different in some ways? Sigh. It's work time.
Structured days at your house sound fun. Good luck keeping them up! I think I'll do something like that too.
as ever, a great mom. and it is really hard when they're "trapped" inside b/c of the rain/cold.
Keep us updated. I what to know how it works.
I know exactly what you mean on the tantrums. Whenever I correct or get stern about his behavior around Ari, he totally loses it. It is totally frustrating, he especially likes to try and wake Ari up when he is napping. It just leads to more and more timeouts. I have observed that he seems to bother Ari more when he is bored, so maybe there is something to the schedule thing. I hate schedules too, let me know how it goes. Good luck!
I wonder if that would work for us too....thanks for the post!
I'm glad I'm not alone! I have wanted to try a schedule, just not sure where to begin. I'm glad it's working for you!
Remember how I used to post schedules on the wall when we'd have kids over or parties? That was my only key to sanity. But day-to-day was harder because I was so busy with my own life and responsbilities that I couldn't just hang out with you kids trying to keep you doing the same things at the same times each day. However did we manage? Chaos, probably.
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