I recently spoke with a friend of mine who has four kids. She was run down weary from the fighting that has gone on in her house for a prolonged period of time. I felt sorry for her, went home to my kids and realized that I WAS TOO!! It's just been going on for so long that I hadn't realized it.... narrowed it down or whatever!! So, I did what I always should do... and called Emily. What do I do?
Here is her advice:
1. Have a rule... if you fight over it... the toy gets taken away. Period. (and be consistent or it won't work)
*Okay... this has changed my life!!! Not only do they TRY to cooperate... but one or the other is constantly seeking to sacrifice for the greater good. Not to mention the phrase I add, "If things become more important than each other... we don't need it." This helps me and them to realize that if something is making us fight... it's not worth having. SIDENOTE: I used to do this but decided against it because it's usually one person STARTING the fight and the other ends up losing out privileges... BUT THINGS are not that important. People are. And, unless it's blatantly one-sided (and it sometimes is) this trick works great.
2. Create diversions. For small children especially, diversions are a great thing. I have been trying it. My friend Emily's mother had her children wash windows, one on each side... a fun game to get out frustration or just have fun. I tried this to clean up the window markers. It worked great!!! A diversion works like this (screaming... fighting... yelling... crying, mom comes it, "hey girls wanna play a game!" and then leads them to the windows with washclothes. That's it!
Thanks Emily!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment