Emotional Bank Accounts

I finally read "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. (https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php I know.  I'm like 15 years behind the times here.  I learned a lot of great stuff in studying this book, but one of the ones I really like using in parenting is the concept of emotional bank accounts.

The idea I use in parenting is that we have an emotional bank account with each of our children.  We make deposits into and withdrawals from this account.  Each positive or good thing we do is a deposit.  Each negative thing is a withdrawal.  For some of my children, even a little negative item ("You need to clean your room") can be a large withdrawal.  I need to make sure I have made enough deposits into the account ("Thanks for being so good about always putting your backpack away"), so that there is a positive balance in the account.

Very accounting-ish, but what can I say.  It works for me to remember this and make sure I'm making more deposits.  There will be times when withdrawals have to be made and I don't want to overdraw my account and have it go negative. The fees can be quite hefty when that happens.

Early to bed...

Benjamin Franklin has the following quote attributed to him: "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise". Besides health, wealth, and wisdom, I can think of many reasons why I should go to bed earlier at night. Here are some of them:

I can wake up earlier.
I'm more likely to exercise.
I have time to read my scriptures before the day begins.
It's not as hot when I'm running outside.
I get to see the sunrise as I run.
There aren't as many cars on the road when I'm biking.
I'm up before my children and have a little bit of quiet time.
I feel more rested.
I have more patience with my children and everyone else.
I'm more productive.
My brain functions more clearly.
I have lunches made on time.
I'm not late for morning appointments.
I get my morning chores done.
I don't feel like falling asleep at 4 pm.
I'm happier.

You'd think with a list like that, I'd be completely motivated to go to bed early. And yet, I have a hard time stopping at night in time so that I do go to bed early.  Maybe I need to hang this list up somewhere and review it every night after the kids go to bed, to remind myself to go to bed early. It's kind of like eating healthy. You know you should do it, and you know you feel better when you do it, and yet somehow, it doesn't always usually happen. Maybe I need help from some of you that do go to bed early.  I'm pretty sure someone must go to bed early or at a reasonable time. How do you do it? Set an alarm? Rewards for going to bed early? A more comfortable bed? Any tips?

Cleaning house - inside and out.

My house is dirty.  Not completely cluttered, but dirty.  I can keep my front room fairly clutter free (usually by dumping all the toys unceremoniously in the basement), but it's been way too long since I've dusted in there.  And the bookshelf has a growing stack of papers that my children have brought home from church. One wrong bump and they all crash to the floor.  My dishes are put away most of the time in the kitchen, but don't open the laundry room door to see the giant, precarious stack on top of the dryer or on the shelf or items waiting to be donated to DI.  The floors are swept and vacuumed most of the time, but best to not carefully look at the linoleum and see the giant food stains that need to be mopped.

The superficial cleaning has been kept up okay, but it's been a while since I've done any deep cleaning. Pretty reflective of the rest of my life. It's fairly easy to do the superficial things in life that make me feel like I'm doing okay: going to church, reading scriptures, taking my children to the park.  It takes a lot more effort to do the deep inner cleaning: really worshipping God, studying the scriptures, praying to God and not just saying prayers, finding out what each of my children really need from me, actively looking for ways to help others each day. You get the idea. 

I'm not being hard on myself, just looking realistically at what I need to work on.  If you don't take an inventory every now in then of your house and what needs to be done to fix it, eventually things will break down. The same holds true with my life.  I always think of the quote from C.S. Lewis in "Mere Christianity" that says to imagine yourself as a living house. God starts knocking things around to build a palace, when we thought we were satisfied with a little cottage.  Sometimes it's best to not just wait for external circumstances to knock you around, but to be a little proactive and do some deep cleaning before it becomes inevitably urgent.  When I deep clean my house, I usually only do one thing each day or week and don't worry about doing it all at once.  Time to do the same with my life.

Spiraling disobedience

I have a 3 year old who I cannot punish.  I know that sounds weird.  When she does something she shouldn't, if I put her in time out or take things away, it just makes things worse.  She seems to spiral downhill more and more the more I try to punish her.  If she hits someone and I put her in timeout, she gets defiant and will then proceed to do something like rip a coloring page.  If I then tell her she loses her crayons, she'll find something else to do.  I frequently can't send her to her room if she's done something wrong, because I'm afraid she's going to start destroying things.  I know part of this is my fault, that she likes to see that she can make me react, but even if I dole out a punishment calmly and without reacting, she still does it.

I'm trying to help her understand that there are consequences to her bad behavior.  Just talking and reasoning with her does not work.  She is 3, after all.  Any suggestions on how to do this? I must admit, she's at least getting better at apologizing after she's done something wrong. And I'm trying to show "an increase of love" afterwards.  I just need to find an effective way to help her to stop when she's done something wrong.  Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone?

Manipulative Mom

I've recently discovered one of my flaws as a Mom.  I actually discover these all the time. This one I discovered by listening to my children talking and hearing echoes of what I say.

I hear my children say things like this: "If you don't give me that toy, I'm never going to play with you ever again!" Or "If you don't play with me right now, I'll never ever let you play with my toys again." It drives me crazy. I don't like my children manipulating each other into having to play a certain game or do something.

Then I heard myself the other day. "If you guys are going to be obnoxious and disobedient at the grocery store like this, I'm never going to take you grocery shopping with me again."

Ouch. It's one thing to hear your children repeat the way you say things that are funny. It's another to hear them say something that you know you shouldn't be saying. So, I'm trying to watch my words more carefully and find better ways to get my children to do/not do things. I'm trying to be more positive/motivating in getting them to do/not do things. I know manipulation like this is wrong. Let's hope I can change my ways and be a better example for my kids.

I hate chore charts

I hate chore charts.  I don't necessarily hate doing chores, but for some reason I don't like little charts that track whether or not chores have been done.  I have chore charts for my kids.  It's a little grid I print off the computer that has about 5 chores and a square to put a sticker on for each day of the week. It doesn't work.  My kids will beg me: "Print our chore charts out!" and I'll try again.  Mondays usually are full of stickers of the chart.  Tuesday has about half that.  It starts to disappear after Wednesday.  We'll do this for a week or two before I just get tired of nagging my children to do their chores, and they don't really care whether they get a sticker or not.  So the charts will disappear for a week or two at a time.  It doesn't affect whether or not they're supposed to do their chores, but I stop tracking it.  I guess it's laziness on my part, but if they don't care, I don't care either.  I guess I need to find a better system for making sure they do their chores.  Any suggestions?

Threats vs Incentives

I've found myself falling back into a threatening mode towards my children.  This is one of those things I have to make a conscience effort to avoid.  I frequently find myself saying things like "If you don't clean all the books up, I'll have to take your stuffed animals away." Really, I'd probably get a better result if I phrased it as "If you put all of your books away, you can go play with your stuffed animals".  I react better to incentives than I do to threats, and I'm pretty sure my children are the same.  An early New Year's resolution, I guess, to focus on encouraging the positive rather than punishing the negative.

Don't be vindictive.

vin·dic·tive [vin-dik-tiv]–adjective: disposed or inclined to revenge; vengeful
As teenagers, my siblings & I would frequently hear my mom say "Don't be vindictive".  This was usually when one of our friends did something to make us angry or hurt our feelings.  She would tell us not to waste our energy trying to get even or react to them, but to move on.  I had no idea this advice would apply to me as a mother as well.

The other day my children made one of the biggest messes they've ever made of my kitchen.  This picture doesn't really do it justice, as it was taken after they had cleaned up some. The floor was covered with water, milk, carrots, hot cocoa, half a bottle of ranch dressing, every apron, and half the kid cups and bowls.  My 2 year old was sitting on the counting, dumping out a packet of dry honey ham glaze all over everything and laughing.  I was not laughing. 

This is one of those moments as a parent when I'm sure I could have just laughed about the whole thing.  Or, I could have taught them a calm lesson about listen to our conscience and what we know if right or wrong.  Or, I could have politely explained to them why they shouldn't dump food all over the floor.  I didn't do any of those things.  I just lost it.  Granted, my losing it is not quite as scary as it could be, but I was furious.  Apparently when they had made a giant mess several months ago, I didn't quite get the point across. My 4 year old said "Sorry we made such a mess mom.  We were having fun."  My 2 year old doesn't know the concept of remorse, so he was still laughing.

I was angry enough, that I just wanted them to be punished somehow and feel guilty for what they had done.  I wanted to be vindictive.  I remembered something my wise sister had told me before - that the point is not to make your children feel guilty, because they won't; the point is to make them understand that there are consequences for their actions.  I'm good at feeling guilty, though.  It's something I inherited.  And I think that because of that I wanted my children to feel guilty about what they had done.  It actually took me at least an hour before I felt like I was over it and not angry at my children for their actions. 

I understand that they're just little kids and they're not trying to be mean.  They also don't quite understand the concept of "wasting" food by dumping it out or of not wanting to clean up a mess. But, wow, it's hard not to feel vindictive even of little kids sometimes.  It's one of those things you're never told before you have children.  As parents, we still have to move on and get over the things our children do, just as we did with our teenage friends.