Listening!

So remember, we (I have lumped my husband in with me on this project) decided to follow a couple of other bloggers as they go through the 52 Positive Discipline Tool Cards, one card per week!

The first tool we practiced was LISTENING! (for a peek at the card check out Mary Tamborski's blog) Listening, sounds pretty easy huh?  I know that as a parent and teacher having your children listen to you is very important.  Parents always say that their kids just don't listen.  I think Jane Nelson would say that what they mean is they don't do what you want them to do.   Either way, the first tool we practiced in our home this week encouraged us to listen to our children first, with the understanding that children who feel listened to are more likely to listen to you.

What I found was that I don't always listen to my children, imagine that!  Listening takes time, patience and humility.  Some of my daughter's explanations run quite long, so sometimes listening means giving up some of my time doing something else to listen.  Other times it is necessary to listen at inopportune times, it takes a lot of patience to listen why the purple knee socks that are at the bottom of the hamper are the only thing that will complete my five year old's outfit before we can go to the grocery store.  Sometimes, often while at said grocery store, listening requires humility.  Getting down to your child's level, eye to eye, and having a respectful dialogue about why we do or don't need bunny shaped pasta in the middle of the pasta and sauces aisle isn't the "norm", it sometimes gets you some pretty strange (mostly impatient) looks.

Overal, listening has been a great tool to focus on.  It diffused a few heated moments and made me more aware of how well my daughter communicates!  It is a fairly easy tool to bring respect to your relationship with your children.

Now, on to the next tool: Encouragement!

52 Positive Discipline Parenting Tools in 52 Weeks

I am going to embark on a new adventure in Positive Discipline starting this week!  It is a challenge to try to implement the 52 parenting tools from the Deck of Positive Discipline Parenting Tools Cards.  I have used these cards in the past for a quick reminder or inspiration or as a discussion starter with parent groups.  They are fun, to the point and full of good ideas!  If you want to follow along with me on this adventure, you can get the cards from the Positive Discipline website. In addition, Jane Nelson, will be advising a couple other willing participants through her blog. 

As with any adventure, I am very excited to get started with this!  I hope to stay on top of it and blog about each of the tools throughout the year.  I will also try to tie Montessori ideas into my posts when applicable!

Here is a list of the tools that we will explore this year:

Week 1 - Listen

Week 2 - Encouragement

Week 3 - Connection Before Correction

Week 4 - Family Meetings

Week 5 - Compliments

Week 6 - Routines

Week 7 - Special Time

Week 8 - Take Time for Training

Week 9 - Validate Feelings

Week 10 - Positive Time Out

Week 11 - Jobs

Week 12 - Mistakes

Week 13 - 3 R's of Recovery

Week 14 - Problem Solving

Week 15 - Limit Screen Time

Week 16 - Follow Through

Week 17 - Agreements

Week 18 - Focus On Solutions

Week 19 - Logical Consequences

Week 20 - Natural Consequences

Week 21 - Teach Children What to Do

Week 22 - Put Kids in the Same  Boat

Week 23 - Allowances

Week 24 - Hugs

Week 25 - Wheel of Choice

Week 26 - Act Without Words

Week 27 - Understand the Brain

Week 28 - Back Talk

Week 29 - Winning Cooperation

Week 30 - Distract & Redirect

Week 31 - Decide What You Will Do

Week 32 - Five Criteria

Week 33 - Empower Your Kids

Week 34 - Motivation

Week 35 - Kind and Firm

Week 36 - Pay Attention

Week 37 - Small Steps

Week 38 - Control Your Behavior

Week 39 - Sense of Humor

Week 40 - Silent Signals

Week 41 - Letting Go

Week 42 - Win/Win Solutions

Week 43 - Closet Listening

Week 44 - One Word

Week 45 - Show Faith

Week 46 - Break the Code

Week 47 - Avoid Pampering

Week 48 - Anger Wheel of Choice

Week 49 - Encouragement vs Praise

Week 50 - Limited Choices

Week 51 - Curiosity Questions

Week 52 - Mirror

The Love of a Mother (and Father)

I guess I am getting to that age where it is becoming apparent that amongst my friends there will be some who choose not to have children.  That fact seems to draw a wedge of sorts between the parents and the not parents.  It doesn’t have to, and some childless couples mesh in better with their parent friends than others.  Either way, things like “ they just don’t  understand” and “they just don’t get it” get said by the parents about the non-parents.  And this “IT” is exactly what is causing the strange separation between us.  This it factor it the maternal (and paternal) love that parents develop when they become parents.  Now it happens at different times for each person.  There are those that say that they fell in love with their child the second they found out that they were pregnant, others say it was when the nurse handed their newborn to them the first time, and for others, like myself, it happens gradually.  With my first child it was a gradual thing that developed slowly starting at the first ultrasound, it grew immensely at the birth and then one day “it” hit me.  “It”, this thing only parents get to experience, is the most powerful emotion that anyone can ever feel.  It is this sense of love for another person that is so strong it will bring you to your knees if you think about it too much, it will make you sick to your stomach if you think for a nanosecond of the possibility of losing it.  It will make you do and say and think crazy things in its defense.  It is so powerful and so amazing that it changes every fiber of our being.  And therefore the wedge.  Parents wonder how their non-parent friends could possibly live without this wonderful love.  Non-parents wonder why their parent friends are so “crazy” sometimes when it comes to their children and why we are always talking about our kids.  Sometimes we parent even get a little pushy, asking when and if the non-parents will have kids.

Of course I remember what it was like before I had kids.  I was happy, really happy.  I had a lot of fun, a lot of me time, and a LOT of sleep.  I get how that could be hard to consider “giving” up.  Becoming a parent definitely requires sacrifice too, and sometimes you have to give up things that you loved before having kids for a while or forever, but all that I can say is that the love and joy that come with it are SO worth it.  

I know this sounds a little fluffy.  To someone who isn’t a parent it might sound like I am one of those people who always wanted kids and that was just what I was meant to do, and that is why I love being a parent so much.  Which is kinda true, but I have friends who growing up swore that they would never have kids, that they didn’t “like” kids.  As soon as they became parents they too were overwhelmed with this special love.  It happens to all parents.  Well almost all, I know there are those crazy people on talk shows that come out and say that they never loved their children, but I would guess that there is something wrong with them greater than just not loving their children.  It isn’t something that you choose to do or not.  It just happens.  I remember people telling me this stuff before I had kids.  My father-in-law was one of the major pushers.  He would always tell my husband that he would never be able to understand how much he loved him until he had kids of his own.  At the time my husband thought he was just being pushy.  At the hospital the day our daughter was born my husband called my father-in-law and through tears of joy admitted that he final understood what he had been talking about.  It truly is amazing.

A bit of advice to those non-parent people out there.  When parent friends ask when or if you will have children or tell you that you just can’t understand what it is like to be a parent they are not trying to pressure you or insult your intelligence.  Parents just want their friends to get to experience the joy of being parents that they have.  We parents know that it is possible to be happy without kids and that being a parent isn’t something that everyone will choose, and we can accept that.  In the end there will always be parents and non-parents and we can all still be friends!

Have you heard of Purple Crying?

Have you heard of Purple Crying?

This is very important information for all new parents!

Organic Junk Food

No, that is not an oxymoron, but it seems that many people would seem to think so.  I am not one to judge, as I sit her in a Halloween candy induced semi-coma, but I do think we should clear up a few terms.  People need to be talking about nutrition with their families and friends.  Our children have more choices than ever before and will need to be well armed with knowledge to make life-long healthy choices.

Organic does not mean it is good for you.  Better? yes, possibly, but not necessarily good.  A few examples are: organic potato chips, organic candy coated chocolate drops  (“m&m’s”), organic chocolate sandwich cookies (“oreos”)and organic gummy fruits.   None of these items, organic or not, are good for you.  The organic versions are better than the originals, in that they don’t contain artificial flavors or colors, preservatives, or partially hydrogenated oils just to name a few of the really bad guys in the originals.  If a person were craving on of the aforementioned items, and was going to eat it no matter what, then the organic version would be a better choice.  Not a good choice, but a better choice. 

Natural is another one of those confusing terms, but it is even worse than organic from meaning good for you.  Organic is at least regulated by the Federal government.  The term Natural really has no legs to stand on.  It is not regulated by the FDA or USDA.  The word “natural” can just be slapped on a label and there is not much anyone can say to question it.

One last term that I have seen a lot is Farm Fresh.  Like Natural, this term really has no clear definition or anyone to enforce it.  The item does not have to be “fresh”, meaning it was made or grown recently in relation to competitors, or from a “farm”.  Farm fresh is just a fun alliteration put on labels to sell food to well meaning shoppers.

So the conclusion here is that processed food is not as good for you as real, whole food.  Of course, organic “real” food is better than non-organic.  We have to stop pretending that junk food isn’t junk food when it is organic.  Lunch boxes should not contain cookies, organic or not.  My favorite example of organic junk food is those yogurts in a tube.  They are filled with sugar and give children another opportunity to not sit and eat with silverware at a table.  Mid morning or afternoon snacks should be organic fruit, veggies, low-fat dairy products, nuts, etc. NOT organic cookies, chips, candies, and “fruit” snacks.

Don’t get me wrong, we eat our fair share of junk food in our house, mostly in the form of home baked goods!  We try to include organic fruits and veggies with every meal and snack, to counter act the not so healthy things we eat.  We try to teach our children why we eat healthy food, and what our bodies need vs. what we sometimes want.  We eat non-organic junk food too, on occasion.   We don’t however, try to pass off junk food as anything other that that - JUNK.  We live by the “everything in moderation” motto.  It works for us!   What works for you and your family when it comes to nutrition?

SpongeBob is bad???

Duh!  Here is some new research confirming what most people with a brain already knew!

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/09/12/spongebob-is-bad-for-smal_n_958410.html

Internal vs. External Discipline

I was in the grocery store the other day as was a mother with her two children.  The children were running through the store, screaming, and knocking things over!  As I approached a couple in the next isle over I overheard one of them saying, "that lady needs to discipline her kids".  And by discipline she meant punish.  I could tell by the look on her face and the tone of her voice that she wasn't saying that mom needed to teach her children something.

The word discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina, meaning teaching or instruction.  Many modern definitions include the word punishment, however the original meaning of the word discipline did not include punishment, but rather teaching to improve or gain a skill or improve a behavior.  Maria Montessori talks about discipline being the result of choosing activities which promote one's own development.  She considered discipline to be a path that one takes not a fact of what one is.

As you can see, from the Montessori perspective, discipline is very different than the traditional perspective which is found in most schools and homes.  The distinction is found between the two "types" of discipline, internal and external.

Internal discipline is one of the desired results of Montessori education.  It is behavior that is driven by the self and comes from within.  Montessori believed that the way for children to find the path of internal discipline was for them to have freedom to make choices for themselves following their inner teacher.  This freedom does not mean that the children can do whatever they want.  Freedom comes with limits; the greater interest of the group comes first and knowledge precedes choice.  The children are given lessons, knowledge, on how to use the materials in the classroom and then they have the freedom to choose the materials that call to them each day.  They then work independently, learning concepts from the materials.  When the child is independent they are allowed to find inner discipline instead of having to look for it elsewhere.  Basically, if you constantly tell a child what to do and what not to do, then they never have the opportunity to make those decisions on their own.  They will forever be dependent on other people to tell them what to do.  They are dependent on an external source for discipline.

These children who are constantly told what to do may "behave" very well, they are a positive example of external discipline.  Others don't fare as well.  If the only thing you want is for your child to behave, then external discipline might be the answer for you.  In fact, this is very common and traditional in our society.  One of the most famous, or largest, examples of this is the military.  Many parents encourage their children to join the military because they want them to learn discipline.  Do they learn discipline from someone constantly directing their every behavior?  I guess it is a matter of opinion!  If they are taught "good" habits and they continue with these behaviors after they leave the military then they have a sense of internal discipline, but if they get out and can't make good choices, one might say that they didn't learn discipline at all.  The message is that discipline should teach not punish.  Jane Nelson, author of the Positive Discipline series of books, say that for discipline to be effective it must empower children to make good choices for themselves.  She stresses that you don't have to make children feel bad to do better.  We need to teach children what to do, instead of constantly telling them what not to do!

Just think, if the lady in the grocery store had taken time before her shopping trip to teach her children how to behave in that setting everyone might have had a more peaceful experience, including the children!