The magic of logical consequences

The other day my children decided to play the game "Tangled" in J and O's room. For Christmas M received a Tangled wig so they play this make believe game a lot. Well in the movie Rapunzel paints all over her walls because she can't leave the tower so what else is she to do, right? Can you tell where this story is going? So while they are playing "Tangled" the kids have this brilliant idea to color all over the walls in J's room!

After the walls are beautifully decorated, my husband walks into the room to check on the kiddos and sees all the crayon on the walls and when he asks them who was responsible the older two point to O and said he did it. Of course they blamed the 2 year old! My husband takes them at face value and starts disciplining O while M and J sit by and watch. I have yet to see the room and am thinking it is just a little bit of coloring . . .

While we are eating dinner J then tells us that he has to be honest and says that he also colored on the wall. M then fesses up as well. I am curious now about the coloring so I go back and look and it is blatantly obvious that it was not the 2 yr old! Those stars are just a little too perfect, the word welcome on the door . . . I mean really the 2 yr old can't even draw a circle on purpose! Not only did I see who was responsible I was shocked at how much they colored on the wall, the doors, the dresser, and even the ceiling! I asked my husband if he actually looked at the coloring because then he would have known exactly who did it! We expressed to our children that we were very disappointed in them and that they would no longer be allowed to play in their rooms or have any art supplies anywhere but the kitchen.

M's a people pleaser BIG TIME and all I had to tell her was that I was disappointed and she was devastated where as the boys just thought it was fun. So I knew I needed a discipline for them to really understand that what they did was wrong. Well every Saturday we have a family fun day where we take our kids out for some fun activities and they have really come to look forward to this special time on Saturdays. So I decided that for family fun day the kids would have to scrub the crayons off of the wall, which is next to impossible with just soap and water.

Yesterday was the big day and when the kids woke up they came running in to our room and were anxious to find out what we were going to do for family fun day! I told them I had a big surprise for them and that they would find out after breakfast. While they were eating I started filling up a bowl with some dish soap and water and got out 3 washcloths. M is quick and the minute she saw what I was doing said, "Oh great we have to clean the crayon off the walls!" I was a little proud at that moment that she knew what the consequence was going to be, we do a lot of logical consequences at our house.

After breakfast I gathered the kids into J and O's room and handed them each a washcloth and told them that before we could have fun they had to get the crayon off the walls. In the beginning they thought it would be great fun, but after ten minutes of scrubbing the same spot and not having that crayon budge one bit they started getting frustrated. I left them to the cleaning while I ran to Walmart to pick up some magic erasers, because that is really the best and easiest way to get crayons off the walls. When I came back my husband told me that the kids were extremely frustrated and were repeatedly vowing that they would NEVER color on a wall again. After I gave them the magic erasers and worked with them the crayon was completely gone in fifteen minutes and we were able to have a fun family day.

I loved that I decided to not give them the easy way to clean it first, but instead had them struggle and work hard with no results. This way they learned that while it is fun to color on the walls it is not fun to clean up those walls and therefore are less likely to make that choice again.

How to handle a 2 yr old tantrum without losing your cool

I have a 2 yr old who I love to pieces. He is the funniest, craziest, cutest 2 yr old on the planet, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom, it's the truth. This kid seriously is awesome. That is until he gets tired and he gets angry and he can't handle the emotions so he has a 2 yr old meltdown. You all saw the video I posted of his tantrum a few weeks ago all because he wanted to get M out of school after we dropped off J and that wasn't an option. When he gets mad he gets really mad and he goes insane. It is like a little monster emerges out of his body and he is no longer my sweet angel but my insane devil child.

As I have mentioned in previous posts I haven't been my normal awesome self as of lately and am slowly refinding myself and becoming the patient, understanding mom I used to be before having raging hormones from pregnancy and nursing. So while I was in my funk and O would begin having his tantrum I would immediately feel my body tense up and prepare to go to battle with this two yr old. I would carry him to his room, yell at him, close the door and then hold it closed because he wouldn't stay in there on his own. Well the other day he began melting down and losing his mind and as I began to feel my body tense up I immediately stopped myself and thought, "Kim you are 28, he is 2! I am not going to engage in this battle with him" so instead I walked over to him, picked him up and carried him to his bed to remove him from the situation (which probably had something to do with his older brother bothering him) and then I laid down next to him, held him in my arms and began singing. At first he tried to fight me because he thought I was going to react the way I had been reacting the previous 6 months. But after the first two lines of twinkle, twinkle little star he slowly began to calm down and let me just hold him. I sang a couple more songs with him until he was completely calmed down and then I told him I loved him, and asked him if he was ready to be a happy nice boy or if he still needed me to sing him some songs. He said he wanted to be happy and nice so we walked out of his room together and he was happy once again.

The moral of that story is this: the key to handling a tantrum is first, to remember you are the adult and have a lifetime of experience to learn how to handle your emotions whereas your child is still learning how to handle their emotions; second is to remove them from the cause, and third shower them with love and patience and give them the time they need to calm down.

What are your tips for handling tantrums without losing your cool?

J is so angry

J is my difficult child. He didn't talk until he was 3 years old and since then he has a hard time expressing himself and M and O do not always listen to his words so he physically attacks them. I do not believe in spanking my kids and literally the only times I have ever spanked was because one of my children were putting the other child in danger - for example one time M pushed J under the water in the bath when he was a baby and without thinking I smacked her while getting J out of danger. So last night J got mad at O and was suffocating him and then tonight M didn't play the way he wanted so he choked her so he got a spanking tonight and I yelled at him pretty good and then I thought well that was genius Kim, I don't want him to hurt others when he gets upset but when I got upset I hurt him. So I started thinking about what has been going on and how I can help him resolve this issue. He has never hurt another kid outside of our family ever and I doubt he ever will, but that is not a risk I am willing to take.

After doing some serious reflecting I realized that from the time J woke up this morning until he went to bed I don't think I spent more than ten minutes focused solely on him all day, he watched TV, he played video games, he went to school, and then he came home and watched more tv and then he hurt M and then we went to a friends house and he played with friends until it was time for bed. Looking back on yesterday it was similar minus the playing with friends part and I did spend more time with him but still not a lot and I honestly feel like his aggression is a cry for attention and he feels like he isn't being listened to so here is my plan:

1. I am removing all toys from the kids bedrooms - I have noticed that it is when they are playing in their rooms unsupervised that he tends to be the most frustrated and does the most hurting, we have a playroom and so all toys are going to be in the playroom from now on and whatever doesn't fit in the playroom is getting put away for now.

2. I am banning technology! Television is nice but it is too easy for me to allow one tv show to turn in to three hours and right now we have a television with dvr in almost every room of the house so for now no more tv or video games or playing on the phone. I will wait until my kids are in school or asleep to get on the computer or watch my shows because I need to be an example to them. I will text but no more checking Facebook or blogs or forums that I hang out at all day. All of that will be done at night or while they are in school from now on.

3. I am going to spend more time one on one with J and play with them more and supervise their playing more. If this was going on in a classroom setting I would be doing a ton of observations where I note what is happening before, during and after so that is what I am going to do at home - I am going to observe and then take what I observe and teach all of my kids better ways to handle situations that come up.

4. T and I are both going to work harder at controlling our own anger. This is not easily accomplished right now since T and I are going through some pretty rough stuff as a couple and I think it bleeds over into our parenting of our kids, plus I haven't had a solid 5 hours of sleep in who knows how long so that is wearing on me and I have less patience with my kids - but it is not my children's fault for any of those things so it is my responsibility to not take it out on them.

5. I am going to talk to J more about how he is feeling - a lot of time we get angry because of cognitive distortions (that is a blog post in and of itself) so I am going to figure out what cognitive distortions he is feeling and help him redirect his way of thinking.

Some of you might be thinking that this is a little drastic and a lot of work (my hubby said it was unrealistic) but you know what I can guarantee if I do these things every day that within a month at the most J will be a completely different kid. I firmly believe that when you choose to have kids you choose to sacrifice your time and wants and desires for their sakes and waiting to teach him how to control his emotions is only going to make things worse so it is time for me to put my life on hold a bit and focus more on him and his needs. I will keep you updated on how things progress!

Give in? Not me!

I don't know what is going on this summer but my kids are sick again! M has strep, O has pink eye and N has RSV so I am trying to do everything I can to keep them away from each other since they are contagious and help them get better as quickly as possible since M has dance rehearsals almost every night this week and her big concert on Saturday! So yesterday I was getting drinks for my kids and I am giving them orange juice to drink since milk is not the greatest when you are sick - I've had to learn that the hard way - and O didn't want Orange juice but wanted milk, well I had already poured it and so this was what happened:

O: I want milk


Me: Sorry buddy I already poured you juice and you need to drink juice to get better

O: screaming - I want milk!!!!

Me: you can have juice or you can have nothing

O: throws himself on the floor and screams at the top of his lung for one minute straight - yes I timed it :)

Me: completely ignoring O's screaming and getting M and J their drinks

J: (while covering his ears and almost crying) Mom please just give him what he wants so he will stop crying

Me: No, just ignore him

J: I don't know how! Just give him some milk

Me: he will stop screaming in a minute and drink his juice just watch

O: after screaming for a minute straight he sees M and J drinking their juice and gets up off the floor, walks over and picks up his sippy and says, "Thanks Mom" then drinks his juice

Stick to your guns, ignore the tantrums and they will end and they will do what is expected. But if you give in and give them what they want - they will continue to throw tantrums in order to get what they want! So do yourself a favor this week and don't give in!

from "I hate" to "I love"

In case you don't know this my family is very religious. We go to the LDS church and I serve in the primary (kids 18 months to 12 yrs old) presidency and my husband is the Elder's Quorum president (men over 18). We go to church every Sunday unless we are sick, we have family home evening after church every Sunday, we pray for every meal and at bed time and we also read our scriptures before bed. I am not telling you this to brag or to say look at me but simply to give you a picture of how our family functions in relation to teaching our children about religion.

If you have been reading this blog you know that J, my almost 5 yr old, is my difficult child and has been from birth. In our church the children begin going to nursery at 18 months - which every parent can't wait for because it means you can actually hear a lesson every once in a while in church! Well when J started going to nursery he would scream like he was dying and physically attack the nursery leaders for about 10 minutes straight then he would calm down and play. We had an amazing nursery leader who let me know that if she couldn't handle him she would gladly bring him to me and she never did. It took until he was 2 1/2 yrs old to finally walk into nursery without screaming and the reason for that was because I did the number one thing parents should never do . . . I BRIBED HIM! I told him that if he walked into nursery without crying and without attacking the teachers he would be able to pick out the movie we watched that night but if he cried or hurt the teachers I would let M pick out the movie. He was old enough at the time to start not liking the "girl movies" i.e. the princess movies so this worked wonders!

One day out of the blue he told my husband and I that he hates church and he hates Jesus - he was 3 at the time. I was shocked! What 3 yr old hates Jesus? I had never met one and I was very worried. I know how important the early years are for children and I didn't want him to hate church as a child because I knew it would only get worse the older he became. So my husband and I talked about it and we both agreed that the last thing we wanted to do was to force the church on him and try to force him to love the Savior. We went about this by not overreacting every time he told us he hated church or Jesus, we just said that's o.k. or ignored it a lot of times. He would refuse to pray but we did require him to kneel with our family to show respect. We took him to church every Sunday because as a family we attend church and as long as he lives under our roof he will attend church. Then one day I asked him why he hated Jesus so much. I was humbled by his answer, he told me, "I hate Jesus because I don't want to have to die on the cross like He did." At church the kids learn about how the Savior died for us and he took that to mean that we all had to die like the Savior and that scared him. We talked to him about how Jesus died for us so we don't have to die like he did. I didn't go too much into death and resurrection because he was only 3. From that moment on he started to begin to like Jesus a little more, it wasn't an immediate change but gradually over the next two years he has come to the decision on his own that he loves Jesus and the church and the scriptures. He is now the one to remind me about saying bedtime prayers, and about reading our scriptures and he says some of the most humbling and amazing prayers! In fact tonight we went to Sonic for dinner and I bought the kids a cherry slush and asked them to add real cherries, when we got home and he saw that they gave him 3 cherries he immediately told me that he had to say the prayer for dinner and in his prayer he thanked Heavenly Father not only for the dinner but that we were able to go to Sonic for dinner and he thanked him for his "3 cherries in his slurpee." He will take the time to thank Heavenly Father for everything he did that day, anything that he received from anyone, and for each person in our family without being coached on what to say. The other night he also got scared in the middle of the night and came running into our room crying. When I asked him why he was so scared he told me it was because he couldn't see his Jesus statue. He told me that when he can see Jesus in his room he isn't scared! What faith and what love all from a child who 2 years ago HATED everything to do with that.

So how does this apply to you? From watching him grow over the years I have learned the value of three things. The first is to be an example to your children. I could have told him that the church was good and that he had to love the Savior and never did anything myself to show him that I loved the church and the Savior. Instead I made sure he knew I felt that way by living the Gospel. The second is the importance of exposing things to children over and over and over until they like something. The third is patience and consistency, I guess that is four - but I knew that J wasn't going to change his mind overnight so I had to be patient and trust that I knew I was doing the right thing and that eventually he would figure it out for himself! So let's say your child hates eating vegetables and literally refuses to eat them but you as a parent know that vegetables are healthy and that our bodies need those nutrients what can you do? The first thing is to be an example, make sure your kids see you eating the veggies and enjoying them and second put them on their plate every night for dinner and tell them they have to eat at least 5 peas to get dessert, and eventually over time they will eat their veggies without a fight and may even love them! Oh I also learned one more thing - don't make it a fight! I didn't fight with J about his feelings, instead I told him how I felt about his feelings, i.e. "I am sad to hear that you don't like church" and then told him what was expected of him, i.e. "we go to church every Sunday and even though you don't like it, you still have to go." So whatever trial you are struggling with hang in there, be patient, be an example, be consistent, be loving, and eventually your child will learn to love it.

Natural consequences at its best

Lately my kids have been experiencing A LOT of natural consequences. If you don't know what a natural consequence is, it is when you as a parent don't have to dish out the consequence, it just happens naturally. I know that sounds confusing so I will give you some examples:

1. Your kid refuses to wear a jacket in the winter, so they go outside and they get really cold
2. Your kid hits a kid and the kid they hit hits them back.
3. Your kid refuses to eat dinner and then they are hungry.
4. Your kid lies and they are no longer trusted.

Those are just some examples, the key here is that as a parent you are not dishing out the punishment but letting the natural flow of life discipline your child. When your kid doesn't eat dinner and then is hungry an hour later that is nature teaching your kid that it is important to eat dinner so you don't have to be hungry. Does that make sense?

I LOVE natural consequences because I remain the good guy and my kids learn that sometimes mom is right and they should listen to me. So here is an instance where my kids have experienced natural consequences.

The other day we had a very busy shopping day planned so we knew we would be eating out. One of the stops we had to make was to Costco and so my husband and I decided the best deal we could get for the family would be Costco's hot dogs and drinks. We of course asked our kids if they were ok that or if they wanted chicken nuggets from McDonald's. They chose Costco's hot dogs. So we are in line waiting to order and M says that she wants pizza. Now at Costco they have HUGE hot dogs and a 20 oz soda for 1.50, or a very large slice of pizza for 1.99 with no soda. Granted their soda's are only .60 the point is it costs more for a pizza and soda than for a hot dog and soda. T and I already decided that we would buy everyone the same thing and so I told M that she could have a slice of pizza, however, she would not get a soda with her pizza but I had bottled water and she could drink that, she then said that she wanted a hot dog. J then said that he wanted a slice if pizza so I told him the same thing I told M. Well T was right there and he said, No, everyone was getting a hot dog. I politely disagreed with T and told him that if J wanted a pizza he could have it I just wasn't going to get him a drink because I thought it was important for J to choose what he wanted for lunch, I wouldn't want someone dictating what I could have for lunch! T agreed and told J the same thing I already told him (don't you love when you are handling a situation and the spouse jumps in to help and not always in the best way). So J agreed and said he wanted a pizza and no soda. Great! So I go up and place our order thinking all is well with lunch. The cashier gave us our drink cups and I handed them over to T to fill up. J quickly realized that everyone but him was going to get a soda and quickly ran over and said, "Wait mom I changed my mind, I want a hot dog now." I told him, "I'm sorry J I already paid for our food and you chose pizza knowing that you would not get a soda. You may ask O if he will share his soda with you, but I am not ordering you a hot dog now that I have already bought you a slice of pizza, and maybe next time you will make a different choice." He was livid of course and refused to talk to me or anyone else and was very angry that I didn't budge and buy him a soda. But you know what, once he started eating his pizza and O shared his drink he was happy as can be. He then told me thanks for the pizza and that next time we go to Costco he is getting a hot dog! Lesson learned and all I had to do was keep my word! How awesome is that.

The key to natural consequences is to stick to your word, what do you think would have happened if I just bought him the hot dog - after all it was only 1.50 I have that in loose change in my car. I will tell you what would have happened, he would have learned that if he throws a tantrum he can get what he wants and he wouldn't respect me, he wouldn't learn how to make a right decision, and he wouldn't learn that our choices have consequences!

Natural consequences are an everyday factor life. As an adult we experience natural consequences all the time - we choose not to do the laundry we don't have clean clothes, we choose not to wash the dishes we don't have clean ones. We choose not to nurture our relationships with others and those relationships fizzle out. We choose to gossip and people stop telling us things. The same is true when it comes to our kids, if you can let your kids experience a natural consequence they will be better for it!

Why?

Having a newborn baby in the house has really brought some insight into parenting for me. The main insight I have had is that everything involving kids can be solved by asking the magic question, why! As I have been caring for N I found myself often asking myself why is she crying? Why isn't she pooping? Why is she not sleeping better? By asking myself why, I found myself coming up with answers to the why and being able to correct the situation. For example, when she starts to cry I would think why is she crying, then look at the clock and notice that it was time for her to eat so I knew to feed her. When she would keep waking up after I laid her down I would ask myself why she was doing that and I noticed that as soon as I laid her down Owen would run over and bump the bassinet to see her so I would move her into my room where no one would disturb her sleeping and then she would sleep!

I then realized I often ask myself why when it comes to my older kids as well. I have been struggling a lot with O and J lately, the two fight constantly! I could have just gotten upset with them, yelled at them, spanked them, taken things from them and that would have stopped the fighting for oh about five minutes, but by asking myself why they were fighting it forced me to really pay attention to what was going on. I discovered that often time J wants to be left alone and O wants to play with J so J will get frustrated and he has never been a big talker so he uses his fists to express his frustrations and then O gets mad and hits him back. So now that I know what is going on I can work with J on learning how to better handle his anger. I also noticed that I would discipline J more often than O so J was feeling picked on and like O could get away with murder so now O is getting disciplined as well as J. It is going to take time and patience and consistency on my end to help them stop fighting so much, but had I not asked myself why they were fighting I wouldn't even be close to fixing it.

By asking yourself why your kids are behaving in the way you do, you can find ways to help fix it. Here are some common reasons why your kids might be acting up:

1. They are tired
2. They are hungry
3. They are bored (especially now that is summertime)
4. They are sick
5. They don't feel safe (big reason kids lie and hurt others)
6. They want your attention
7. They want to have more power over their life
8. They are scared
9. They don't know how to express themselves and their feelings in a healthy way
10. They have been given too much power over their lives
11. They are insecure
12. They are behaving like a typical child (especially when they are 2!)
13. They are over or under stimulated


So look at your biggest parenting struggles, is it that your kid is constantly lying, or do they refuse to listen to you, or are they really whiny? Why do you think they are being that way? After you figure out why they are doing something what can you do differently to help them?

Another important thing to note, never ask your kid why they did something. By asking your kid why they did something it automatically puts them on the defensive and you are not going to get a clear answer. Instead ask them what happened, what they were feeling, what the other kids did or said, what they were thinking. By asking what you show them that you aren't blaming or accusing them but are just trying to find out what happened. You will get much more honest and open answers when you ask kids what instead of why!

Tips and Tricks Tuesday: When kids hit

All kids hit, whether you spank your kids or not it doesn't matter, all kids at one point or another in their life are going to hit someone else. Just like all behaviors how you as a parent respond to the hitting will determine how long the "hitting" phase lasts. Typically boys hit way more often than girls because boys are less verbal and more physical, but girls still hit. There is a great article here that talks about how to handle when your kids hit.

To add to the article, I am a firm believer that you do not punish hitting with hitting. When my kids choose to hit other kids then they choose to no longer be able to play with their friends or siblings. Depending on the level of "pain" they inflicted will determine how long they cannot play. Typically I tell them that they cannot play until their friend feels better, so if the hurt kid cries for five solid minutes then my kid will sit out from playing for five solid minutes. I do have my kids tell the friend they are sorry - but sorry is not enough! Too often I have had another kid hit one of my kids and they think that just because they said they were sorry that is enough - likewise with the parents, I have had mom's look at me and say "sorry my kid hit yours" and they think that makes it o.k. Now occasionally it is o.k. if it is a mild hurt - but if your kid hit my kid hard enough to leave a mark, cause them to bleed, or cause other serious injury sorry doesn't cut it.

If my kid makes another kid bleed, they will help clean up the blood and they are done playing and we will leave. If we cannot leave then they will sit on the couch until it is time to leave, because that is serious and kids need to know it is not o.k. to hurt our friends. If it is an accident, i.e. they were both running and ran into each other and the kid fell and got hurt so they are bleeding my kid will sit out until the bleeding is under control.

One thing I disagree with in the article is having the parent apologize for their child - as soon as my kids can talk they are taught to say they are sorry.

What do I do when other parents aren't o.k. with my discipline style? This rarely happens because my kids are disciplined when my kid hurts another kid, but I always talk to the other parent about what happened and we usually come up with something that works for both of us. What do I do when I am not o.k. with another parent's discipline style? It depends on how often my kid is hurt by the other kid, if every time we get together the kid is hurting my kid and the mom does nothing about it, or just makes the kid say sorry and nothing more then we will no longer play with that kid, they will not be welcome at my house and I will not take my kids to their house.  Also I do teach my kids to hit back. My kids know that it is not o.k. for them to hit someone, but if someone is hitting you then you have every right to defend yourself and hit back and they will not be punished for that, and when the kids both come crying about what happened ad find out one kid hit and then the other kid hit them back, I just say, "well sounds like you worked it out, next time maybe you could use your words instead of your fists, but if you don't want to get hit then don't hit first."

How do you handle it when kids hurt other kids?

Liar, Liar pants on fire!

There are very few things that I have a hard time forgiving, the top two things I struggle to forgive are Stealing and Lying. The reason I have such a hard time forgiving these two things are that they both deal with trust. When you steal from me how can I trust you? When you are constantly lying to me how can I trust you? It is impossible. Trust is the core of every relationship, it is the first stage in Erikson's eight stages of man and without trust you cannot have a relationship.

With all of this being said, I do not have a hard time forgiving a child who lies or steals because every child goes through a lying/stealing phase, and the length and severity of the phase depends on us as adults! Now when an adult lies to me it is an entirely different situation because they are adults and know better!

When it comes to lying the main thing to remember is that people lie to protect themselves. They lie because they don't want to get in trouble, they don't want you to judge them, they don't want you to dislike them, etc. When it comes to kids it is important to realize that kids will lie to get out of trouble, especially when parents over discipline and punish extreme regardless of whether or not the child is honest! Take the following scenario for example:

Cassie got into mom's make-up and made a huge mess and completely ruined her lipstick, she knows she isn't supposed to get into mom's make-up without asking so she tries her best to clean it up which only makes a bigger mess so she leaves it and hopes her mom doesn't get too upset. Cassie's mom then goes into her bathroom and sees the mess that is made and becomes very angry, she yells for all of her kids to get in her bathroom and demands to know who made the mess. It is obvious that mom is extremely upset and the kids are afraid of how she is going to react so the natural reaction for them is to lie and act like they do not know who did it. Eventually after mom yells and threatens and yells some more Cassie admits to making the mess. Mom is now even more upset that Cassie didn't confess earlier (even though it is completely mom's fault for her not feeling safe enough to confess her wrongdoing) so she punishes Cassie for not only making a mess of her make-up but also for lying to her. Cassie has to clean up the mess, work to earn the money to replace mom's lipstick, write 100 times on a piece of a paper that she will not lie and spend the rest of the day in her room.

Now what are the chances that the next time Cassie's mom asks her if she did something is she going to be honest right away? She isn't because her fears were reinforced and there was no benefit for being honest. Now let's take the same situation and change mom's reaction


Cassie got into mom's make-up and made a huge mess and completely ruined her lipstick, she knows she isn't supposed to get into mom's make-up without asking so she tries her best to clean it up which only makes a bigger mess so she leaves it and hopes her mom doesn't get too upset. Cassie's mom then goes into her bathroom and sees the mess that is made and becomes upset. Mom knows it isn't going to do anyone any good for her to allow her emotions to run rampant and so before she confronts any of the kids she takes a deep breath, counts to ten, and realizes that had she been paying better attention to her kids the mess wouldn't have happened in the first place (after all it is our job as parents to keep an eye on our kids and when we aren't paying attention to them and they make a mess it is partly our fault because well kids are kids and they are going to make messes when unsupervised). She then calls her children into the bathroom and says, "Does anyone know who got into my make-up?" when no one answers mom then says, "I am not mad, I just need to know who made the mess and I promise it will be a lot better for you to be honest about it now than for you to lie to me" (In that one sentence you took care of two of the child's main fears the first being your anger and the second the reassurance that it is better to be honest.) Cassie then admits to making the mess, and mom gets down on her level, looks her in the eyes and says, "Thank you for being honest. Now you know you aren't supposed to get into my make-up without asking, and I am very disappointed that you chose not to ask me first so I need you to help me clean up this mess." Mom and Cassie then work together and clean up the mess.

Now what are the chances that Cassie is going to be honest right away the next time? 100%! Why not, she was thanked for being honest and was only given one consequence that related directly to the crime that was committed. Now for those of you who may be thinking - yeah right like that happens - to those I say, come and spend a day in my house and you will see that happen over and over again. In fact M says to me before she tells the truth, "it will be better if I am honest than if I lie right?" and the answer is always yes. The lying phase in my house lasts at most a week because I constantly reinforce to them that it will be much better for them if they are honest than if they lie.

Now what do I when they lie? I tell them that I am sorry that they chose to lie and I am disappointed in their choice, I then give them their logical consequence for whatever misbehavior there was and then I will add a little more to it that is still in conjunction with the crime because they lied. For example, in the case of the make-up I would say "you now need to clean up this mess and I was going to help you clean it, but because you chose to lie me about it you will now have to clean it up by yourself and I am going to watch you." This way it is still logical and I have stated that because they lied their consequence is worse, but not much worse. They also hear what would have happened had they chosen to be honest. Then when the cleaning gets "hard" I say, "I am so sorry it is hard to clean up, I really wish I could help you, unfortunately you chose to lie to me and so now you have to clean it up all by yourself. Maybe next time you will tell the truth right away and I will be able to help you"

This is all wonderful when you handle the lying right when it begins (which is typically between ages 4 - 6) but what about those of you who didn't know how to handle it and now your kids constantly lie? You need to realize that not only do your kids need to earn your trust BUT they need to earn your trust. You need to do the above suggestion, consistently over and over and over again until they feel safe enough to be honest. Kids lie because they are afraid of your reaction to the truth, so control your reaction and make sure you make a HUGE show of how much you appreciate their honesty every time they are honest, even if they are being honest that they poured all of their legos down the toilet!

The other thing to be aware of is your own level of honesty with them. Are you keeping your word to them? Are you always honest with them? Are you honest with others around them or do they hear you lying to your spouse/friends? Kids will do what they see you do and if they watch you lie then they are going to lie.

Speaking of adults lying - my husband likes to say random things to the kids that make them question if it is true or not, it is always off the wall unimportant stuff but it jacks my kids up and they always look to me to see if dad is telling the truth or not. One night he told the kids that the hamburger for tacos were our dogs - we killed them and used them for the meat, I have no idea why he would think that would be a funny thing to tell the kids, but he did; and of course they looked to me and I told them that daddy was being silly and that it was hamburger not the dogs. So now M tells T all the time . . . "Don't tell naughty lies dad!" He never thought of them as being lies, he thought of it more as being funny and telling stories but to the kids he is lying! Kids are very in tune and very aware of the importance of honesty and lying, especially when it is reinforced the value of being honest!

How to give logical Consequences

Ok now that you understand what a logical consequence is I am going to explain to you the best way to give a logical consequences. The first thing to remember is that you are not trying to punish your kid, but are teaching them to accept responsibility for their actions. This is key because when our goal is to punish our kids we tend to have the attitude of "I'll show them whose boss" and when we look at it as a way of teaching we are kinder, and tend to be more respectful to our kids and for me I find it easier to come up with consequences when I am using it as a teaching moment.

The next thing that is key is to be respectful, when you are yelling the consequence at your kid they are probably feeling unloved and like their opinion doesn't matter. I am far from perfect, but I try really hard to not yell at my kids - but I am the first to admit that when I am really frustrated I do yell but you will also always see me apologize to my kids for yelling at them and telling them that it is my fault I yelled not theirs.

On that note it is all about the approach and the way you phrase a logical consequence that makes all the difference. Take a look at the two different approaches to the following misbehavior.

Misbehavior: Jill leaves her toys lying all around the house and doesn't pick them up.
Approach 1: Mom says "Jill, pick up these toys right now or they are going in the garage!"
Approach 2: "Jill, you can either pick up your toys yourself or else I am going to pick them up and put them in the garage. It's up to you."

Which approach do you think is the most effective way to give a logical consequence - the second one! You always want to use either/or choices or when/then choices because it puts all of the power in the kids hands, which is where we want it to be! An example of a when/then choice would be: Johnny wants to play outside but his room is a mess so you say: "when your room is clean then you can go outside and play."

We also want to involve our kids in choosing the consequences as often as possible. My in-laws did a form of this when their kids were growing up and it made for some pretty hilarious stories. Here are a few of them that you might find amusing as well:
1. My sister in law said that if she didn't clean her room her mom could poor water on her head. Some friends of hers were going to the mall and she wanted to go, even though her room wasn't clean, and as she was walking out to the car her mom came running out with a pitcher of water and dumped it on her head in front of her friends - she then chose to clean her room.
2. My brother in law said that if he didn't clean the bathroom he would sleep in the bathtub, he didn't clean the bathroom so to the bathtub he went to sleep!

Now those aren't really what a professional would call "logical consequences" but they worked for that family, and that is what matters most. None of us have cookie cutter lives and what works for my family might not work for yours, the important thing is that you find a way that does work and teaches responsibility not punishes!

Which brings me to the next step - ONLY GIVE A CHOICE YOU CAN LIVE WITH! It doesn't do you any good to punish yourself with the consequence given to a kid. I have a friend who always threatens their kid "either do this or you don't get to go . . . " and all that does is punish both a kid and a parent because now the parent doesn't get to go either! If you can't live with a messy house don't give them the consequence to not clean up after them, if you can't handle your kids going to bed without dinner don't give them that as a consequence.

Finally make sure you always follow through because your kids are going to test you! State the consequence one time and then if they choose not to do what is expected dish out the consequence. Kids will test you to see what you are going to do all the time, they want to know how much they can get away with so if you tell them that when their room is clean they can go outside and play, but you get tired of them crying about cleaning their room so you cave and say fine go play outside - well guess what next time they are definitely not going to clean their room. Now on the other hand if you say, I know you don't want to clean and that's o.k. it just means you can't go outside then depending on how badly they want to play outside will determine how quickly their room gets cleaned. I always reinforce to them when giving their consequence that they chose it, not me and that I am not the bad guy and hopefully the next time they will make a different choice. In this way I am not the bad guy, I am just the enforcer of rules.

Natural and Logical Consequences

This morning when I woke up I looked at the clock and saw that it was 8:00 and I thought wow my kids must be playing so nicely since they let me sleep in so long - usually I am being woken up at 6:30 with demands of food, tv, diaper changes, cuddles, etc. So I come out of my room and the first thing you see when you turn the corner from my room is our playroom which is still spotless so I am really impressed with how well behaved my kids have been this morning, then I turned the corner again and this is what I see . . .


At this moment I just stood there and thought "Oh wow! Huh, not what I expected" What you don't know by seeing this is that there was a tie on the doors of the game cabinet to keep this mischievous 2 yr old out of the game cabinet. What I didn't know was that he could bypass that tie and still manage to get into the games and puzzles, and when I say get into I actually mean dump the games everywhere! This mess is actually a lot bigger than the picture shows because there were literally games and puzzles strewn across my entire living room.

At this point I have a couple options as a parent in regards to disciplining O for the huge mess he made. 1. I can spank and yell at him and really show him who is boss (while also teaching him that when people do things we don't like it is o.k. for us to hit and yell at them and encourage him to feel unloved) 2. I can have the attitude of saying well he is 2 and that's what 2 yr olds do so I will just send him off to play and clean it up myself (which teaches him to not take responsibilities for his actions and that he can make as big of a mess as he wants and mommy will just clean up after himself) or 3. I can come up with a consequence that fits the crime and will teach him responsibility, still feel loved and will last him a lifetime. I obviously chose option 3, which is to have O help clean up the mess he made and not be allowed to play until the entire mess is cleaned up.

If you were ever to spend a day with me at my house you would see the use of a lot of what "experts" call natural and logical consequences being used. I do not believe in time-outs as mentioned in a previous post and I do not believe in the use of physical discipline (spanking, slapping, kicking, etc. etc.) Sure those methods work to instill fear in children and teach them to obey or else . . . but why not teach them to make good choices because that is what is the right thing to do and also teach them that when they make bad choices there are consequences that make sense and that they can understand. There are a ton of great parenting books out there that explains this concept and one of them is called "Parenting with Love & Logic" by Foster Cline and Jim Fay and they have an amazing website full of helpful advice that you can check out here.

The basics of logical and natural consequences are simple to understand but not always easy to come up with. My sister in law told me once that she has a lot of friends who call themselves love and logic dropouts and I think the main reason for that is that this is a hard way to be a parent - not hard in the sense that it is impossible, but in a sense that you as a parent HAVE to THINK beyond the reach of your arm (or wooden spoon for my wooden spoon motivators out there) and be involved as a parent. How hard is it really to send a kid to time out? Not very, sure it might take up a few minutes of your time to make sure the child stays there and you have a nice little chit chat afterwards about why they are in time out and then it is done. How hard is it to spank a kid, actually really easy just reach out your arm and swat them until all of your anger is relinquished and they are properly demoralized and you can get right back to whatever it was you were doing before the child interrupted you with their misbehaviors. But coming up with consequences that fit the crime are a lot harder but also a lot more effective in teaching kids how to properly behave. So what do I mean when I say logical and natural consequences?

According to Active Parenting by Michael H. Popkin (by the way I LOVE this book) a good definition of logical consequences is: "discipline that is logically connected to a misbehavior and applied by an authority to influence a child to behave within the limits of the situation." Now you might be saying, huh? to that definition but basically when you think of logical consequences think of the Law of Moses - you stole something so they cut off your hand, you lied they cut out your tongue - only not as severe as cutting off our child's limbs!

Here are some examples of logical consequences:
Children are arguing over what to watch on tv so no one gets to watch TV
Child makes huge mess in living room, child cleans up huge mess in living room
Child refuses to clean up toys, child's toys get taken away until they can show that they can clean up their toys
Child hits brother, child has to help brother feel better
Child refuses to eat what is made for dinner, child doesn't get to eat dessert and may possibly go to bed hungry.

The main idea is to make sure it fits what they did wrong, if they aren't eating dinner what sense does it make that their punishment is to go to the room for the rest of the night? It makes more sense to say o.k. you don't get to eat anything else later. I don't believe in making a child sit at the dinner table all night either when I am done eating my dinner my kids may also get down from the table and the food gets put away and if they ask for a snack later all I have to say is "did you eat your dinner?" and if the answer is yes then they can have a snack, if the answer is no then they can't have a snack but I can reheat their dinner for them at my earliest convenience. Does this make sense to you? Do you have any questions? I know I also mentioned Natural consequences but this post is already long so I am going to save that for another post. But please leave your thoughts on logical consequences, and it would be great if you put examples of what logical consequences you use in your house if you use them!

Time-out

The other day I was catching up on my shows and I was watching an episode from Supernanny that is the inspiration for this post. On this particular episode it was a military family with four adopted children. The children all had come from other countries and had very traumatic lives before they were adopted and because of this the mom didn't want to over discipline for fear of making the children feel unloved. Her husband had been deployed to Afghanistan and so she was raising these children as a single mom.

In this episode the mom showed Jo (that's Supernanny's name in case you didn't know) that instead of putting her kids in time-out she would put their toys in what she called "toy jail." Jo was flabbergasted by this and basically made fun of the mom for putting the toy in time out and not the kid. Jo then taught the mom the Supernanny's way of time out which is putting the kid on a naughty stair for a set length time that is based on the child's age and every time the kid gets off the stair the timer starts all over and after the child has sat through the time limit quietly they then talk to their child about what they did wrong and the punishment is over.

This is not necessarily a "bad" thing except for the fact that you are really relying on a child's comprehension skills for this to be an effective way to eliminate a behavior and it can be way overused. I personally do not believe in time-outs in the traditional way that many people do and I do put toys in "time-out" if that is what you want to call it.

Parents typically begin employing the time-out form of discipline at around the age of 2 because well let's face it 2 yr olds are "terrible." They are terrible because they are finally figuring out that they can say no and they can do things for themselves and they have a very hard time understanding that even though they are becoming a big kid and are able to do a lot for themselves there are still a lot of things that they cannot do for safety reasons or because it is time to do something else. One of my biggest struggles with my 2 yr old is transitioning from one activity to the next. He gets in his mind that he wants to play cars when it is time for bed and therefore he becomes very upset and very frustrated and takes out that frustration by either screaming, hitting, throwing the cars or by completely ignoring my requests to clean up and get ready for bed. Now I could put him in time-out because he isn't listening to my words, he is hurting others or he is refusing to clean but what do you think is going through his mind while he is sitting in time-out for 2 minutes? I can't say for sure what he is thinking about because I am not in his mind, but knowing that 2 yr olds are egotistical and don't think beyond themselves and their immediate wants and needs I am going to make an educated guess and say that they are probably thinking about how crappy it is that they are in time-out and not so much about why they are there. 2 yr olds also have a very hard time thinking about the "past" or even the future and tend to think more in terms of right this minute. A 3 yr old is much more capable of processing the facts and understanding the fact that they are in time out because they made a bad choice however this is not the most effective way to discipline kids in my opinion.

I prefer to discipline my kids by the use of logical and natural consequences (this will be a post for another day) over time-outs. My kids toys get taken away when they choose to not clean them up, when they choose to play with them improperly (throwing them, using them to hit others) and also when they are fighting over a specific toy. Along with the toy being taken away is an explanation to them about why their toy was taken away. For example, M and J both want to play with a Woody doll (from Toy Story in case you were wondering) and neither one is willing to let the other one play with it first so they are fighting. I will tell them that they need to figure out who gets to play with it first or else no one will be able to play with it. They then have an opportunity to make a better choice and resolve the issue on their own by working out how they are going to share a toy. I always give them atleast 2 - 3 minutes to figure it out before I intervene, and will only intervene earlier if the fight becomes violent. If they choose to continue fighting then I will walk over and take the toy and tell them that because they chose not to agree on how to share the toy I am choosing for them and no one gets to play with it. I will then take the toy and put it where none of them can reach it. If they get upset I tell them that I gave them plenty of time to decide how to share it and they chose to fight instead and therefore no one gets it. I don't put them in time out for not sharing because I don't think it is the most effective of teaching them how to share.

The only time I will put my child in "time-out" is when they are so upset that there is no way I will be able to talk to them and they just need to cool down for a minute and then I will take them to their room and tell them that when they are calm and ready to talk to me in a polite and respectful way then they can come out. I don't set a timer, I just close the door and walk away. When they are calmed down they will come out and then I will talk to them about whatever is upsetting them and help them figure out a way to handle the situation. Sometimes they are in their room for less than 30 seconds and sometimes they are in their room for thirty minutes it just depends on them and how long they feel they need to calm down. For my 2 yr old I put him in his bed and because he doesn't understand come out when you are calm I wait for him to stop crying and then I get him out because I know he is now calmed down. I feel that everyone including adults needs time to get away from the situation and calm down before they can reasonably deal with an upsetting situation and my kids have heard me say that mom needs a time out and have watched me go into my room lock the door count to ten or a hundred and come back out a lot more levelheaded than I was before my time out. My kids also know that they can send us to our rooms when we lose our cool (this is mostly my husband for yelling when we have a rule to not yell in our house).

What are your thoughts on time-outs? Do you use them and find them effective and if you use them what is your time-out procedure?

What would you do?

I am curious to know how you would handle the following situation.

I have a 4 yr old and almost 2 yr old boy who fight non stop. It used to be that the 4 yr old would constantly hit the 2 yr old, but now it has switched and my 2 yr old is now randomly hitting my 4 yr old. So in all honestly tell me how you would handle this behavior.

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