I didn’t have a fancy gadget like this for potty training. But, I’m sure this would do the trick for any child old enough to pull the cord!
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photo credit: flickr
If you don’t believe in your authority who will? Children are quick to pick up on fear, inconsistency and uncertainty. It’s like they can smell it.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. They can’t.
So my advice is “fake it until you make it.” Be firm. Be loving, but be firm. Don’t let their cute, sad little faces cause you to bend the rules. Don’t allow whining and tantrums to weaken your resolve.
You are the parent. That’s right – You. You make the rules and it’s up to you to be sure that they are adhered to.
I bet some people don’t even realize that they don’t believe in their own authority. They just think that people don’t take them seriously, or don’t listen to them. Or worse, that they have bad children. shudder
The fact is that we teach people how to treat us. If we allow our children to disrespect our rules, then we have allowed them to dilute our authority. We have taught them that we are not serious about laying down rules. We have shown them that we don’t believe in our own authority.
I imagine that all of this came to be during the time that we were in school. Something changed in society. Children were given more freedom and adults less. So, in the end we have parents acting like children and children who are out of control (literally: No one is controlling them.)
I urge you, as the next generation of adults and parents, to take your role in teaching discipline very seriously. Teach it by example as self-discipline. Teach it by direction as rules and consequences. If you don’t…who will?
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like Love and Rules. or Counting or The Time Out Space
The Read Aloud Handbook
There’s nothing like snuggling up together to enjoy a good book. The trouble is that sometimes it’s hard to choose a good book to snuggle up with!
My go-to source for selecting new family read-alouds is Jim Trelease’s The Read Aloud Handbook. This book is chock full of reading suggestions for all ages and interests. We’ve discovered many gems within its pages, some of which we’ve read multiple times.
Books to be shared out loud need to have a certain literary value to be enjoyable. Sure, you can read The Diary of a Wimpy Kid out loud. But, it’s much more fun to read We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen or The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B.White or the Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary.
Pick up a copy of this book and you’re sure to find many, many hours of family reading pleasure ahead of you.
Have you heard parents counting while they wait for their child to comply with their instructions?
I don’t believe it in. I believe in children doing what they are told to do. Children should do what you said because you said it, not because you started counting to 3. It’s like a threat. (And sometimes a hollow one, don’t get me started on that one. That’s another post!)
“Give Mommy your toy.” Mother is gather playthings so they can leave to go home. Child continues to play with the toy.
“Mommy said, give me your toy.” Child continues playing and ignores her.
“Give me your toy…..(big pause)…. Mommy’s going to count…..(pause)…One (big pause) …..twooo (longer pause)….” Child plays with toy and either does or doesn’t hand over the toy. Regardless of whether or not the toy is handed over this whole interaction was a waste of time and it only teaches kids that you only mean what you said if you count.
Honestly, I’m always a little embarrassed for the Mom using this “technique.” To me, she is demonstrating that she hasn’t taught her children to respect her words only her threats of punishment.
Here’s how I got results with young children.
Believe in your own authority. If you don’t, you can be certain no one else will – not even a two year old.
If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy Believe in Your Own Authority or I’m Sorry I Can’t Understand what you’re saying ( a post about whining.)
The Time-Out Space should be the most boring place in your house where your child can be safely left alone. For toddlers it might be inside a playpen, or in their crib with no toys. For preschoolers my favorite place was the landing of the stairs. Other ideas might be in the hallway with bedroom doors closed.
flickr.com/photos/smomashup1
The Time Out Space should be devoid of entertainment and distractions and other people. It should be completely boring; a good place to think about your actions; a good place to realize that what you were doing before was more fun than being here; a good place to make a plan for how to improve your behaviour and get back into the game; a good place to cool off from flaring emotions.
I use the Time Out Space as a place for punishment. When this is the case I set a timer and tell the child that they can return to find me when the timer goes off. When the timer goes off and they come to me we discuss the incident that led to the time-out and plan a strategy for avoiding such an unfortunate incident in the future. (Timers make things easy. In case you haven’t noticed, I like easy. With a timer keeping track of the time-out, I can go do something productive, or just relax without watching the clock – I’m not the one being punished, after all.)
If the child comes to find me before the timer has rung then I return them to the spot and say:
“Oh, no, I’ll have to start the timer over again. Back you go.” It doesn’t take very many times of this happening before they learn to stay in the time out spot on their own.
Guidelines for how long to time a child out:
1-2 years: up to a minute
3-4 years: up to 3 or 4 minutes
5 years and up: up to 5 minutes. *No more than this.
*The point is to have time to miss the fun. The time out is not the punishment, missing out on the fun or interaction is the punishment. My kids didn’t need long time-outs to adapt poor behavior into good behaviour. They hated being on time-out. A one minute time-out was the longest I ever needed.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you might also like to read Counting or “1-2-3 Now I Really Mean It” or When to Teach Your Baby the meaning of ”No.”
