Kids are Worth It

In article .com,
beeswing wrote:


Robyn Kozierok wrote:

SNIP

Having read a bit more of the book more thoroughly, it seems like
their
approach to this would be to, indeed, get angry, and confront him
about
it according to a formula they provide, which would come out
something
like this:

"E, I'm frustrated! I think I should be able to get you into the car
in time to pick up the big boys without it being a big struggle every
time. You are climbing over the seat right now instead of sitting
still to get buckled, and you are making us late to pick up the big
boys, which isn't fair to them or their teacher. I need to know that
I
can get you into the car quickly when we have to get somewhere at a
particular time."

Which is all very well and good, and I'm willing to give it a try,
but I'm not too optimistic about getting a useful response to that
from a 4yo.

I don't know that it's any consolation, but it wouldn't work with my
profoundly tween 10.5 year old, either. She needs things that affect
her directly (I try to connect them logically, if I at all can).

Frankly, we do a lot of bribing with television.

I wouldn't call you a hopeless parent at all. I think most of us
do things like this all the time.

I'm trying to get away from bribing so much. It's easy and it works,
in the short term. But I'd like to get my kids to a point where they
do things because they are "right", kind, considerate, moral, etc...
When we bribe so much, we end up with kids who will always want to
know, "what will you give me if I do?" Threatening is really the
same. They are doing or not doing the action because of some external
consequence, not for the "good" reasons we hope for them to do things.
For a 4yo, it is a bit much to ask; for a 10yo, I think, not so much.
My 11yo responds well to thinking about the deeper reasons for things
like this. My 8yo is starting to see beyond the end of his nose. I've
made it an explicit goal to keep them moving in this direction, which
is why I'm thinking about this so much. Is it practical with a 4yo, or
do you just "sow the seeds" while using the more effective tools as well?

--Robyn


..

Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article .com,
beeswing wrote:


Robyn Kozierok wrote:

SNIP

Having read a bit more of the book more thoroughly, it seems like
their
approach to this would be to, indeed, get angry, and confront him
about
it according to a formula they provide, which would come out
something
like this:

"E, I'm frustrated! I think I should be able to get you into the
car
in time to pick up the big boys without it being a big struggle
every
time. You are climbing over the seat right now instead of sitting
still to get buckled, and you are making us late to pick up the
big
boys, which isn't fair to them or their teacher. I need to know
that
I
can get you into the car quickly when we have to get somewhere at
a
particular time."

Which is all very well and good, and I'm willing to give it a try,
but I'm not too optimistic about getting a useful response to that
from a 4yo.

I don't know that it's any consolation, but it wouldn't work with my
profoundly tween 10.5 year old, either. She needs things that affect
her directly (I try to connect them logically, if I at all can).

Frankly, we do a lot of bribing with television.

I wouldn't call you a hopeless parent at all. I think most of us
do things like this all the time.

I'm trying to get away from bribing so much. It's easy and it works,
in the short term. But I'd like to get my kids to a point where they
do things because they are "right", kind, considerate, moral, etc...
When we bribe so much, we end up with kids who will always want to
know, "what will you give me if I do?" Threatening is really the
same. They are doing or not doing the action because of some
external
consequence, not for the "good" reasons we hope for them to do
things.
For a 4yo, it is a bit much to ask; for a 10yo, I think, not so much.
My 11yo responds well to thinking about the deeper reasons for things
like this. My 8yo is starting to see beyond the end of his nose.
I've
made it an explicit goal to keep them moving in this direction, which
is why I'm thinking about this so much. Is it practical with a 4yo,
or
do you just "sow the seeds" while using the more effective tools as
well?

Don't get me wrong, we've talked through the reasons and the "whys"
with The Kid since she was 4 or even before (at what was a
developmentally appropropriate level at the time...answers are more
indepth and complex these days then they were then, obviously). It's
just not necessarily what motivated her at 4, and it's not what will
motivate her *promptly enough* at 10. There's time in between incidents
to talk, for example, about why dad gets frustrated, how it makes him
feel, how it makes him act (growly), and what she can do personally to
help the situation. We talk like that. A lot. And we hit the subject in
question more than once. But when you are in a hurry and just need to
get out the door, for us, at least, isn't a practical time to lay on
the reasoning, at least in any depth. The end of the day, when it's
quiet, might be a better time. (I don't know that this will work with a
4 YO. For them, things seem to need to be handled immediately, in our
experience, or not at all.)

beeswing

--Robyn


.

In ,
Scott wrote:

*This is a general question for all parents, I guess, 'cause
*I'm curious: how much time elapses between when your kid
*is out of bed, and out the door to school?

J (4.5) gets up between 6:30 and 7:30 (lately, more likely 7:30! woo
hoo!). We leave the house at 8:45 to go to school. N (2.5) gets up between
5:00 and 6:30, SIGH.

*We live a 5 minute walk from high school. It'll be interesting
*to see how close they cut that when the time comes.

I lived a 2 minute walk from elementary school, and a 5 minute walk from
high school. I would roll out of bed and run to school with a comb in my
hand...

--
Hillary Israeli, VMD
Lafayette Hill/PA/USA/Earth
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is
too dark to read." --Groucho Marx

Scott wrote:



This is a general question for all parents, I guess, 'cause
I'm curious: how much time elapses between when your kid
is out of bed, and out the door to school?

Younger DD (8 yo) can do it in half an hour.

Older DD (11) needs every bit of 45 minutes - she moves very slowly
first thing while she's still waking, spends a bit of time getting her
hair "just right", and she has more responsibility for getting her lunch
put together than the younger one.

Lesley

"Scott" wrote in message
...

This is a general question for all parents, I guess, 'cause
I'm curious: how much time elapses between when your kid
is out of bed, and out the door to school?

Rose is usually out of bed maybe at 6:20, earlier if she's taking a shower.
We leave the house at 6:50 so she can be at jazz band practice before school
at 7:00 AM. Emma gets up around 7:00 or 7:15, but she doesn't have to be at
school until 8:55, so she hangs out for quite a bit before getting on her
bike or scooter to ride to school. Since about November I've been doing the
jazz band hauling -- my husband makes sure Emma's out the door in the
morning.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky

Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

In article .com,
wrote:


In my family, the logical consequence of not getting into your car seat
is that a parent physically does it for you.


Some days, I just don't have the energy ;-) He's getting strong.

btw, the car seat thing wasn't meant as a huge problem I needed solved,
just a day to day instance of things I want my young child to do that
he doesn't necessarily want to do, and where the natural (rather than
logical) consequences don't matter to him. Cases where I might tend
to use bribes or more "punitive" consequences.

--Robyn
..

In article ,
Scott wrote:

This is a general question for all parents, I guess, 'cause
I'm curious: how much time elapses between when your kid
is out of bed, and out the door to school?


I first wake all 3 boys at 6:50. We aim to be out the door by 7:30,
but it is usually more like 7:40. Seems ridiculously long to me
(on the rare occasions that it's just me leaving, I can be up and
out in under 15 minutes) but they take a long time to "get going"
at first. Next year we won't have to leave the house until 8:15,
which is much more reasonable, IM-night-owl-O.

--Robyn

..

In article ,
Scott wrote:

"E, I'm frustrated! I think I should be able to get you into the car
in time to pick up the big boys without it being a big struggle every
time. You are climbing over the seat right now instead of sitting
still to get buckled, and you are making us late to pick up the big
boys, which isn't fair to them or their teacher. I need to know that I
can get you into the car quickly when we have to get somewhere at a
particular time."

BTW, I can't stand the 'it isn't fair' argument. Things
aren't fair -- so what? Life isn't fair. So DD and DS
know not to use that line of reasoning on me

I'm assuming you are referinng to the "isn't fair to them or their
teacher" comment above. I didn't really mean "fair" in that sense
("equal") there -- I meant "considerate" or "reasonable". That
usage makes sense to us, but if you have an aversion to saying "fair"
say something else.

--Robyn
..

(Robyn Kozierok) wrote:

In article .com,
wrote:

In my family, the logical consequence of not getting into your car seat
is that a parent physically does it for you.

Some days, I just don't have the energy ;-) He's getting strong.

While children can be strong, I would not want to let them get away
with wearing me out unless I had some severe physical problem.

So the first step is not to try to do so much while the older kids are
in school that you are worn out - your child will sense this and will
redouble his efforts in the same way as he would sense that his whinny
arguments were resulting in mental weakening.

It may be that all you have to do is come to the problem time/area as
rested as possible. If this means letting things go in the house or
something, then do that until he learns that you ARE stronger than he
is and you WILL have energy available.

btw, the car seat thing wasn't meant as a huge problem I needed solved,
just a day to day instance of things I want my young child to do that
he doesn't necessarily want to do, and where the natural (rather than
logical) consequences don't matter to him. Cases where I might tend
to use bribes or more "punitive" consequences.

Maybe another thing to consider is whether someone else could pick up
the siblings at school. Or whether they could come home on the bus,
or go to after school care or something other way to handle it.

A sneakier way to do this is to arrange for a sitter (maybe a
neighbor's teenager to come in while you go off to get the older
children and leave your child at home. If he is doing it because he
wants attention, he will find that he's being left out of things that
maybe he would want to do.

Sometimes we get so close to things that we tend to not see other
possibilities - so the above suggestions probably will not apply to
you, but are meant to get you thinking out of the box.

I had arranged for my daughter to be taken to pre-school by another
mom, and then I picked both children up. I lived a fair way up the
road from her, so I'd take my child to her house in the morning.

Quite near the end of the year, I discovered that the other mom got
the pre-school teacher to drop by her house and pick the children up
and she never did any driving at all. So I saw that I had the choice
between
a) making myself a free taxi service for this other mom
b) refusing to pick her son up at school and looking like I was
mean-spirited
c) taking my daughter out of pre-school.
I did C. She moaned and complained. Her reason for not doing any
driving was that she had a baby, but so did I


grandma Rosalie

"Scott" wrote in message
...

BTW, I can't stand the 'it isn't fair' argument. Things
aren't fair -- so what? Life isn't fair. So DD and DS
know not to use that line of reasoning on me

I know I'm rather the opposite from many parents on this, but I never tell
my kids that life isn't fair.

I tell them that I will do my best to be fair with them, but things will not
always be equal. In fact, any average day, things will not be equal. In
other words, it just may happen that this time your sister will get a bigger
cookie than you. Or we will spend the whole day focused on one child and not
the other, because that day is her special day and not yours. It could even
happen that we will spend more money on one sister's education, because she
made a special effort to get in to Prestigious University, and the other
sister decided to party through high school, so she's going to the local
community college. None of these are situations in which the child is
treated equally to the other at that particular moment. In general and over
time, though, we will try to be fair and just to both. And for what it's
worth, I can't think of a time when a kid has used the "it isn't fair"
argument with me, either. They simply know it's not effective here.

As for life in general, outside of our household not being fair -- well,
sometimes it looks that way. But I personally do not believe in a random and
capricious universe. That doesn't absolve you from fighting for what is
right -- rather the opposite. You are one of the ways that the universe is
going to put itself into balance and into justice for everyone.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky

Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky