Parenting Tip for Stubborn Kids

I get the e-mails from Love and Logic and the one that came last week was great! I'll paste it below. But it has worked great with Libby. We have used the questions with her since we got the e-mail and it's amazing how well it works. Now if I could just get an e-mail about how to make bedtime pleasant. Heck--I'd even pay top dollar for it if it worked.

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Have you ever noticed how strong-willed kids love to be told what to do? Yeah, they love it, because it gives them a chance to get stubborn and to show us who's really the boss! All that's required to achieve their goal is to do the opposite of what we want, do it extremely slowly, or develop a severe case of temporary hearing loss.

Here's a little experiment that might make your life a little easier with stubborn kids:

Put a smile on your face and replace telling with asking.

Instead of saying, "Pick up your toys," experiment with putting a smile on your face and asking, "What needs to be put away here?"

Instead of telling, "You need to take out the trash before we leave," experiment with a friendly, "What do you need to do before we can leave?"

Instead of, "Quit jumping on the couch," experiment with asking, "What did I say about being on the couch?"

Why do questions up the odds for cooperation? First, they stimulate thinking. The more pondering kids do, the less resistant they become. Questions also communicate, "You are so bright! You can figure this out!" I don't know about you, but I'm always better behaved around those wonderful people who make me feel this way.
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Try it!

It was nice to get back to a routine today, but I do have to say it felt like the first day of school almost and I worried about my girls. When they are home, they are safe with me and I know what I am teaching them and what influences they have, etc. So sending them off to school, I was feeling a bit protective, not wanting them to go. I did get quite a bit done though. I did some laundry--actually folding it when I took it out of the dryer instead of leaving a huge pile for Brian to do later.

After school was chores, playing outside, one of my girls (unnamed) getting her bike taken away, dinner, then family home evening. Brian gave a great lesson. He always thinks of the most creative things. We had it outside (BRRR!), but he had me bring out an egg. So he compared the egg to relationships and what do we need to do to take care of that "egg"? At the end, he talked about what happens if we are mean and unkind (e.g. drop it) and it fell on the ground and it broke, obviously. It was just a great lesson about how to take care of relationships and how we need to treat each other. He also mentioned how hard it is to repair something like that when it does get broken. Christ can put it back together, but it's better not to have "dropped" it at all. So tonight when they would start doing something unkind, I said, "Remember the egg." Which lead to eye rolling and sighing by again an unnamed daugther, but hopefully it's something they'll remember.