The beginning of our summer was filled with lots of time outs, and by mid-summer I was ready for Plan B, because apparently Plan A was not doing the trick. Honestly, my boys are great kids and they play well together, but kids are kids, and they need help with redirecting their energy.
I am so excited to finally have some of my favorite creative discipline ideas in one place together. I will definitely be using them, and hopefully they work in your home as well. Come back and tell me if you tried any and if they worked in your home.
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Have a list of things on hand that your kids can do, or have them write 3 things they can do to be kind to their sibling or friend, and then ask them to pick one. I had my kids write down 3 things, and then I posted it on the wall. All their ideas were really generic, so we came up with this list: Kid Friendly Ways to Encourage Kindness in the Home (comes with free printable).
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What happens when you are hurt or upset? You want to be heard and understood. In the same way, it's important to first approach our child's tantrum with empathy instead of charging in with consequences.
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In order for this to work, make sure that your kids' toys come out of time out. Make it a short time out, not weeks or months. Otherwise, they end up forgetting about them and don't care. Have them put the toys in a bin and let them know the importance of cleaning up when mommy asks you to and not ignoring her request. Give them an exact day that the toys will come out of time out.
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When you find yourself in the middle of an escalated situation with your child, instead of going in stronger, take a moment to step back and calm yourself down. If you go into it with an "I'll show him who's the boss" attitude, it only makes things worse. What I am teaching myself to do is stop, breathe, and say a quick prayer. It's been working. What I really need though is a reminder to STOP.
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We made a Calm Down Jar, and it works wonders. You can totally see how well it worked by my son's facial expression.
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We all mess up and forget to control our tempers or emotions. Kids need do-overs. Share with them the appropriate way to respond, and then give them the opportunity to model it.
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Now this will work if they aren't hurting each other physically. For more details, go here.
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For example, instead of saying, "You will not get a bedtime story tonight if you don't get your pajamas on," you should say something to this effect: "I will be reading a bedtime story in 10 minutes; if you want to join me, you should have your pajamas on."
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This was recently brought to my attention, and I love the idea behind it. Over at Connected Families, you can get a list of how to come up a positive statement from your child's misbehavior. For example, you caught your son lying. He has been doing this a lot lately, and he already knows this is not okay. So when you sit him down tot talk about his consequences, start it off like this: "Stuart, you definitely have a creative mind..."
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This helps your child who takes their time or is easily distracted stay on task. You can even make a game out of it. For example, you can say, "I want to see how many cars you can place in the basket in the next 5 minutes." The timer helps clarify, so you can say, "I am going to set the timer for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, I need all the toys off the floor and in the correct basket."
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