Thursday, February 9, 2012

Discipline


I love these pjs of Baylies.

I've been super sentimental lately. Or maybe I'm just relishing the actually sweet quiet moments at our house because there has been lots of crying and fighting. The girls all just love each other, ya know when they aren't telling on each other, scratching or biting (Paisley!).


We have lots of dresses over here.


Darby home 'sick' from school. So....yesterday I get a call from the school...during the day which is always alarming. So I hear, "Darby threw up at school, would you please pick her up?" Of course! After I hung up there I like CRAP! I had three sleeping kids. THREE SLEEPING KIDS. When does that happen. Baylie only takes a nap like once a month. So anyway, I love Darby. I would get hit by a bus for her. But would I wake up three kids to pick her up from school? Hmmm..... So maybe she waited a few more minutes in the nurses office while I figured out what the heck I was going to do. I heavily debated leaving them all sleeping cause its like a block away. But ended up calling a few people, and Grandma K came to my rescue! She came over and sat with them for a few minutes while I picked up Darby. Yahoo! I did wake up Baylie first cause for a second I was thinking of leaving her in lockdown with her, until I remembered she was four still.


Part of Luke's room. Lots of legos.


Lots of bows and princess dresses.


We scored lots of books at the Goodwill. Hardy Boys.

Ok, so I've been trying to work on different discipline's around here. Cause we have some sassy pants over here, seriously even Paisley says, "No, you stop mom!" not cute.

We've been going the no tv, no wii, no technology route for a while, but we need to shake it up. And last Saturday I got really frustrated when I tried to implement a strategy from this awesome book we like that talks about touching the kids hearts...anyway, I ended up in tears until the spirit whispered to me..."Hey you lady (I'm ad-libbing)...You don't have Gene Cook's kids...you have Jason and Brooke's kids...so what worked with Elder Cook might not work for you." Well duh! I'm a pretty slow learner sometimes.

Anyway, so I'm on a mission to find discipline that increases family unity and love not creates more angry feelings for both of us.

So the other, while Mr. Sassy Mouth (also known as my reincarnated talk backing self in almost 9 year old boy form...I also come in 4 year old girl as well)....was particularly rude, I came up with this...

Write letters to everyone in the family, mine had to be 6 sentences, the girls could just be three...letters had to be written before any tv, iPad, video games...you get it?

The girls loved getting letters from their big brother, I loved it, Jason loved it, warm fuzzies all around, and then I wrote a note to Luke that he loved too. Hooray! Don't you love when you actually access the personal revelation that we as mothers have access too? I always need to do it more. Now I need like 20 more ways to do this so if you have ideas keep em coming.

On the 'I'm crying cause why isn't Luke's heart touched by already?" ...we ended up going to look for more books at the used book store, because the bad mood needed to stop and it had to be our way, not someone else's. And then another day, (cause seriously this had been an issue), when he was particularly saucy, I got a babysitter and we went on a date just the two of us. I do not want to reward bad behavior, but for us, when someone is getting in trouble lots, it sometimes means they need some more love.

This parenting stuff is hard huh? Sheesh why didn't anyone tell me?

I have a bunch of questions for my mom to answer...like did she ever know when I was faking being sick to get out of school? Sometimes everyone needs a day off. Its been fun having her home today, plus we needed to work on a project thats due next week.






Baylie ended up to needing to do it back to Luke a few days later.

7 comments:

Phillips Family said...

I love that letter idea! So cute. I am all about trying to figure out ways to disipline in "loving" ways too (mainly cuz I'm sick of yelling). Something we do is when they are fighting they have to face each other and smile for five minutes (which always ends in a laugh fest for us all) or we make them stand face to face and say 10 things they love about each other. Sometimes this one takes awhile but it's good to make them think...this way they are focising on the positive in each other not the negative.

Another thing we do is service for each other. I print out little hearts and we pick a name out of a hat...the person they pick is the person they serve for a week...but they cant' tell who their person is . Anyway, when they do them a service they leave the heart there to let them know someone was thinking of them. We don't do this every week...just when it seems they need to start focusing on it. It has seemed to help the fighting.

brookeisacrazylady said...

we've done the say 10 nice things about each other too..sometimes its 5. good ones tina...love the service idea. ...but i think you have sweeter children also :)

Nancy Jo said...

Of course I knew when you were faking it. That is why when you threw up before school when you had something big happening, you still went to school : )

bro said...

Cute Baylie hair. Luke is pretty sassy, I am sure any theoretical kids of mine won't be sassy at all

agirlnamedgay said...

Way to think outside the box, Brooke! Now come overto y house and yank me out of this claustrophobic, completely too small box I'm trapped in. Thanks!

Unhappy Customer said...

Love the letter writing!!

Mommy said...

Nobel Parenting prize to you! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the letter idea. I'm stealing it.