I am pretty proud of some of the consequences that we have been dishing out in our house lately. As we get older as parents, we seem to be getting smarter. I think our kids are noticing too.
Bear last week was extremely disrespectful and it was really mind boggling how someone so adorable and loving most days of the week can turn so quickly into a hard head-headed rebel almost instantaneously.
He’s a tough one to deal with a few days out of each year. A puzzle to be solved.
Well did we come up with a great consequence for him!
Here it is on this poster he prepared:
On Family Night tonight he had to do a big presentation on respecting authority figures and we had come up with 5 questions and he had to research his own thoughts on these topics and the questions were:
Why kids have parents to guide them?
Why is it important to respect authority?
What I will do differently in the future in a similar situation?
What I will ask of my family to do differently in a similar situation in the future?
How I would deal with my my own kids one day around respecting authority?
He was amazing. A+ plus, It was soooo interesting to hear him present and he stood up and everything and made it super formal. Had a treat for all of us and ended with ” And to my family I am so sorry that I behaved liked this and ask for your forgiveness”
Aww…..
He even started with a quote that he chose himself about respect (and this was not part of the consequence-bless this boys’s soul)!!!
“The first duty of love is to listen”
Wow. We even found that one a bit tough..-sounded like it came out of the Bible! We told him good quote but that even if he doesn’t listen we love him anyways no matter what. But that very true listening is a real sign of love and respect.
His presentation was almost so much fun I almost wish he would be disrespectful again to have an encore! (Ok maybe not)
And Beauty a few weeks ago took a loony at the cottage that did not belong to her which she found lying around. We told her that that is considered “stealing” and that she would hang that loony on her beside wall until she was absolutely positively sure that she would never again in her life take something that was not belonging to her without permission.
She left it there for 3.5 weeks and tonight (I think inspired by her brother’s presentation) took it off her wall and came up to me and said:
“I have decided this is coming off my wall-I am ready and I will never ever do that again”
Let’s see if it is the truth!
As for Chase..well he for whatever reason decided to sleep on the couch through most of this tonight. I think his part time “job” of becoming and internet trader-aka buying things off internet and selling them at higher prices –has become a lot of work for him. I am telling you this kid will be a broker. It’s quite fascinating to watch his brain work…he pretty much looks for opportunities to buy and sell all day long. Nothing so far has actually come out of it. To complex of a process but tomorrow is the big test as he has his first “sale” in the parking lot at school. A longboard. Hmmmmmm…let’s see how that all goes.
This teenage stuff is complicated!
So I go to bed now very happy with the consequences dished out and lessons learned. I tonight sat back on my chaise lounge and watched it all play out. Hubby was extremely implicated and talked a mile a minute and shared his two cents. He seems to get heavily into this family night stuff-it’s fun to watch him. He is such a great Dad.Our kids lucked out with him.
I was personally very happy eating my half of a Mars bar treat and quietly thinking to myself….”this is so much fun”.
I think after 14 years of trial and error in some ways ..I am beginning to understand what type of consequences actually have an impact. Timeouts were always the savior for years but now I have to get more creative as they get older.
They are upping the anty on us now...too smart to sit on some steps.
