Amy, over at Resourceful Mom, came up with an interesting challenge that I just had to try. She’s calling it a 30 Days of Change challenge. The first one was to say no as little as possible to my kids.
Now, I will step up and say it didn’t work out well with Katie. She’s developed a new habit of swatting at her spoon while she’s eating and the only thing that stops her is saying no, so no was said during her meals.
However, P came home and wondered what new discipline technique I was trying with Ben because we were having a really good day. I mean, really good. I made an effort, a serious one, to not say no. Sometimes, I’d say yes, after, but I tried not to tell him flat out no that he couldn’t do something. Did we still have screaming melt downs? Yes, a couple of them. Did he still try to do things his own way? Yes, some of the time.
But, did he go to his room when he’d done something “big wrong” (his words, not mine)? Yes. I walked him to his room; told him that what he’d done was something that was big in terms of time in his room and that he’d have to wait for the timer. The fascinating part? Normally, the timer goes off and he is bolting out of his room. Not this time. He waited for me to come get him and we talked and he agreed it wasn’t good (he lied about something, actually, something trivial, but the bigger point that he lied at all).
I really expected this to be total chaos, but really, he doesn’t want that much and it worked out really well for us. I’m going to keep this going and see what happens next.
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