Some New Rules

Thank you so much for your patience and your participation in the recent giveaway from last week.  

 

And the winner is:

Rachel Larson  I’ve emailed Rachel and she very enthusiastically already replied this morning and her package will be in the mail very soon.  I’m so excited for her!

And now for today’s post:

I’ve said before, and my local friends would confirm, that I don’t put everything on the blog. I have a whole realm of topics that I just won’t touch. Sometimes it’s a privacy or gossip issue, and other times I’m just not ready to talk about it. We all need boundaries.  Especially writers.

I will say now, though, that Knut and I are exhausted from the constant fighting that has been going on with our kids since about Christmas, and it’s been so rough here at home lately that I haven’t wanted to talk about it, or I did want to vent all over the internet how awful my kids have been in detail, and have refrained for their sake.  It has just gotten so bad.  I can’t put my finger on what happened over Christmas break, but no matter what routine I’m trying to bring back, no matter what structure I’m enforcing, no matter the time and love I pour into them, we are a mess.  We’ve been an absolute mess.

We miss the days we can just hang out with them. We are trying to get on top of it, but attitudes are just flying all over the place. We have tried rewards, we have tried punishments, we have tried one on one time. We’ve had a million deep heart conversations. And they still argue and complain around every turn.

And sometimes we moms (and dads) need to know that we aren’t alone in this struggle.  Parenting is sometimes snuggling up on the couch with a good book.  Other times it’s more like a wrestling match, complete with spectators.

Last night I wrote up some new rules, or “standards” as I called them for our house in a fit of passion and frustration. I showed them to Knut, and he gave a hearty 2 thumbs up. I won’t post them all, because they are customized to each kid who is currently having a major attitude problem (yes, that would be more than one) in an effort to wake them up.

Of course, I have a mission statement for the new set of rules. I am a writer after all. My poor children. I’ll share that here:

“The purpose of these new rules is for peace in our house with no arguing, a strong work ethic, a godly desire to serve others, and an attitude of love, not blame in our home. Also we desire for you to have an understanding of responsibilities and their connection to privileges.”

Of course, I didn’t just post up the rules.  I have found that stories make the biggest impact on my kids.  They needed to see what they were doing from a new angle.

So I told them: “You know, Ingrid has been resisting being potty trained and pretty soon I’m just going to take away the diapers, and we will stay home until she figures it out.  We will help her right?”  They all nodded.  “We’re going to encourage her, and reward her.  But I remember too, that when I potty trained some of you, you knew exactly what to do and you would stare right at me and pee down your leg to show me how mad you were about being potty trained.”  The kids look at each other and laughed hysterically.

“You got in trouble, then.  But potty training is hard.  It’s learning a new standard.  So what do you think a standard means?  Does it mean you never have any accidents?  Like what if you’re 6 years old and wet the bed by accident one night.  Does that mean you’re not potty trained anymore?”  They all said, of course not.  It’s just an accident.

“What if you wet your pants 4 times a day.  Are you potty trained then?”  They agreed that no, that would mean you still need training.  One accident that was rare was different than constant accidents.

“Do you think Ingrid is excited about being potty trained?”  They all looked at her, as she shook her head no.  She is not.  They all laughed.  “Will she be able to stay a baby forever?” I asked, “Or at some point, will Mommy and Daddy tell her, it’s time.  We’re working on this, like it or not?”  They thought that we wouldn’t let her go on forever in diapers.  “Do you remember when Solveig refused to go poopy in the potty chair for a long time, and when she finally did it, we gave her a little doll?  What if we gave her the doll, and she stopped going in the potty chair but decided she had the doll, she can go back to pooping in her underwear again?”  They agreed I would take away the doll for sure.  The doll was the reward for reaching a standard.  It’s not for every bathroom break.  That would be crazy.

The conversation went on to things that Ingrid could do with her attitude to make potty training easier, and things we could do as a family to make it easier on her, and just having an understanding on how scary and difficult it was for her as she learned a new standard.

“So…” I moved on.  “You guys, have a standard to learn.  You learned the potty trained standard a long time ago, but you each have a new one to learn.  You’ve been having a lot of accidents after you have earned a new privilege.  You need some more training, and Mommy and Daddy feel it’s time to just work on this as a family, and just focus our attention on getting this standard made.  Like Ingrid, this might be frustrating for you.  We’re going to have to show you things that you feel you are doing right, but actually, you’re doing them wrong.  Also, like potty training, it’s not going to be perfect, and we don’t expect you to be.  There will be rewards for great effort and there will be consequences for bad attitudes.  Training means we understand you are just trying to figure it out, and you understand that we believe you are ready.

I read them the new mission statement.  “Honestly kids, we are sick of spending all our precious time with you arguing on whether or not you need to do your chores or school.  This should not be an argument we have everyday, let alone all day every day.  You are not letting us correct you when you do something wrong.  You will stand there and argue about how right you are, and how we must be mean.  You are lying about your chores being finished.  You are refusing to do some of your school subjects.

Mommy and Daddy have this dream of playing games with you, and having lots of fun, and going on field trips but whenever we plan it, one of you melts down into tears because you don’t want to finish your math, or reading or writing, or you just don’t feel like feeding the animals first.  We are spending every minute of our fun time arguing with you and disciplining you, and making you do what you know you need to do, the things you promised you would do when you asked for all these privileges, and end up doing after hours of fighting.  We hate it.  These rules are here to bring the fun back.  It will sweep away all the hours we spend fighting, and replace it with fun time.  That is our goal.”

At first it sounded good to them.  They wanted the same thing: less fighting, more fun.  Then I read each child’s new standard, based on what they were personally struggling with and fighting us on.  There was fear in their eyes.  Jaws were dropping.  What?  You want me to be on time every day for school?  You mean, you’re going to start a stop watch every time I start arguing about a chore or assignment you give me?  You mean I have to wipe down the counters every time I do the dishes?  I’m going to lose what?  I have to earn what?  I thought I already earned that and I was good to go!  There were a few moments of panic, and I went back to the potty training analogy.

“If Ingrid can be potty trained, you guys can do this.  We won’t let you get stuck in little-kid land.  It’s time to step up and act like the young adults you are.  There will be privileges given, but those privileges will be taken away often during the training, until you understand the direct relationship it has between you fulfilling your responsibilities.”

I know we’ve said this all before.  I know these rules have been said, and printed out in various ways.  But it’s time to start fresh.  New standards for each child are printed out and laminated and hanging up in the kitchen.  The kids know when the laminator comes out, Mom means serious business.  Consequences are immovable, and they have seen that when they try to argue away the consequences, they just get deeper.  They have turned their eyes away from the consequences, though, and have begun to run towards those privileges.

They are beginning to believe that they might actually be capable of all the things we tell them they are capable of doing.

We didn’t buy them anything new.  Every enticement is something they have already been given, but then backslid and stop following through as soon as they had “proven themselves.”  This is just reinforcing that when you reach a new level of responsibility, and earn a new privilege, that responsibility stays, or the privilege is gone.  For some reason, this is a very difficult subject in our house right now.  It has lead to lies, blame, excuses, tantrums, stomping, and a general lockdown on our home as we just don’t want to take them anywhere.  Folks, sometimes this is parenting.  It’s saying “no…I love you too much to let you act like this.”  It’s moving away from barking orders, and sending people to their rooms to cool off, etc, and it’s inspiring them to rise up to be the people God made them to be.

So far, this attempt is working.  I’m starting to think we got through to them this time, if even for awhile when we have to work on new standards as they grow older.  If we could have a whole week without the arguing, I think I’ll be a new woman.