Consistency and a Parking Lot Time Out

Ah, my sweet Nate. He is so in a phase right now. Challenging the rules. Being extra stubborn. Whining incessantly. Pushing buttons as often as he can. Trying to find the loopholes so that he can get away with whatever it is he wants to get away with for as long as he can.

When I'm not in the midst of experiencing his "phase", there is actually a part of me that loves this aspect of him. It's a glimpse into his personality that potentially will be a great quality to have if developed in a positive way. I love watching his brain at work. He's a smart kid. The way he thinks. His logic. It's great!

And he can drive us all crazy!

I can't begin to tell you how many times Nate has heard, "Stop" in the last couple weeks. My husband and I have thrown every parenting technique his way. I seriously think he is on a secret mission to see if he can break us. To be honest, there have been a few times where I have thought that he just might.

But the key to dealing with this behavior is consistency. It's hard sometimes. It's exhausting sometimes. It's inconvenient sometimes. But all times it's necessary if I want the undesired behavior to change.

The other day, he was picking on his sister. She told him to stop several times. He didn't. I told him to stop. He didn't. I pulled him aside and gave him a firm reminder of stopping when asked to stop or he would be choosing a time out. He said he understood. We got in the car.

As I pulled out of the parking spot Nate started in on another argument with his sister. She was saying, "it is" and he was saying, "it isn't" just to be contrary. I pointed out to Nate that this is an example of picking a fight with his sister and that I was going to jump in right then and say, "stop". This shouldn't have been a problem for him since we had just talked about this. But in the ever so soft whisper of my five-year-old (who remember is always seeking out the loophole) I hear, "it isn't".

By now we're at the stoplight. I don't say anything. The light turns green. I don't say anything. I drove the car into the first parking lot across the street from where we had been and pulled into a parking space. Nate perked up and asked, "What are we doing here, Mom?".

"Well, Nate," I replied, "we're here to do a time out. I told you that would happen if you weren't going to listen and stop when you were asked to stop. I told you to stop and you still chose to whisper 'it isn't" right after I had told you to stop." Nate's face sunk. I think it was more the look of, "Dang. She caught me." But he didn't argue. Nate got out of the car and did his time out on the curb in the parking lot while Isabella, the baby and I sat in the car.
Real quick side note here. Nate was perfectly safe. I was right there beside him. He wasn't freezing. I actually reduced his time from the typical five minutes to two-and-a-half because it was chilly. Time out is never punishment. My goal is not to make my kids suffer. The purpose is to follow through with the choices they make and always mean what I say regardless of where we are. As a result, my kids know that a time out can happen anywhere, even on the side of the road. Just because we're in a car does not mean consequences can't happen.

Nate was actually pretty sweet the rest of this day and did a great job of "stopping" when asked to stop the next time the opportunity presented itself. Consistency pays off.

I know there is more to come from him. But it won't last forever. In the meantime, I remember I love him and because of this I will do my best to stay consistent.

Turning Listening Into an Absolute

My son Nate is in this wonderful phase of not listening. Right now it's mostly developmental, I know. In his little ego-centric four-year-old mind he's thinking "I don't want to listen. I'd so much rather do what I'm currently doing than listen to what you have to say." And like my daughter was at this age, he is very stubborn. If I don't give him a reason to think that listening to me is a better option than not, well...he's not going to listen. To him, it doesn't matter that it's his MOM telling him to get dressed. It doesn't matter that I explained to him that we are leaving in ten minutes. No. He's thinking, "I don't want to get dressed, and frankly you haven't convinced me that listening to you is worth the effort of getting dressed."

I have found myself, like most parents, getting lazy and instead of expecting him to listen to me the first time I ask, I give him lots of chances by coming back into the room every five miutes to tell him in my most exasperated voice to PLEASE get dressed. Cuz, "I'm not kidding. We have to leave!"

I have woke up in the morning reminding myself that doing this is not effective parenting and that today Nate will get one chance to listen. I'm going to remember to offer the choice to listen or have a time out, and I am going to follow through. And I do it. And it makes the point for a day or so only until I realize that a few days have past and I'm back to coming into the room and telling him more than once to please get dressed. And soon it occurs to me that I've been so inconsistant that even getting refocused and offering the choices isn't really effective any more.

It's when it has gotten to this point that I realize the time has come to turn "listening to mommy or daddy when we say it's time to get dressed" into a temporary absolute. Abolutes are those things that you don't get to make choices over. They are an immediate consequence for the sake of breaking a pattern of behavior. We keep a very small handful of things forever absolutes like hitting, biting, swearing (if needed)...generally those things that purposefully hurt another person. When an absoulte is broken, it is an immediate consequence. No discussion. For a preschooler like Nate, it's usually a time out. So for instance, if he were to push me out of anger, I would say firmly, "No pushing Mommy! Time out!" When used correctly, absolutes can often break a behovior, such as hitting within a very short amount of time.

As parents, we don't have many absoultes because we want kids t0 take responsibility for their behavior, we want to give them a sense of control over their lives, and we want them to learn to make choices so that they are prepared for making the millions of choices they will have to make on their own in their lifetime. Overall, studies show that offering choices and following through with logical consequences is the best way to change behavior and for long-term learning to occur. But ocassionally, and I emphasize the occasionally, we need to institue a more pure behaior managment-type approach and turn a behavior that is chronic into an absolute temporarily. This way, the pattern in poor behavior can be broken and reset to a level that reinstituting choices for that behavior again can be effective.

I realized this morning that often times turning something into a temporary absolute is as beneficial for me, the parent, as it is for my child. Because, Nate's failure to not listen to me is mostly my fault. I have not been consistant in my expectations for when he needs to get dressed. I have not done a good job of letting him know that when I say "It's time to get dressed" he knows it's in his interest to do that "right now." He knows that usually I'm going to come in and tell him three or four more times before I really insist that he gets dressed. I need to get us BOTH on the right path again.

So, this morning one of the first things I told him was, "Nate, starting today, when I tell you it's time to get your clothes on, you need to do it right away. If you don't, it will be an immediate time out." This is my way of informing him that and absolute has been instituted so I'm not blindsiding him with it later. We ate breakfast. And we talked about what was on TV. And then I told him it was time to get dressed. I didn't leave the room. I waited to see what he was going to do. And my sweet little boy huffed and sat on the couch with his arms crossed in defiance.

"Bummer. Time out, Bud for not listening and getting dressed when I asked you."

I picked him up an put him on the stairs without any further discussion. He sat there for his four minutes. When it was done, I asked him why he was in time out. He correctly told me he was there for not listening when I told him to get dressed. I reminded him that I did tell him that if he chose not to listen to me when I told him it was time to get dressed that it would be an immediate time out. He remembered. And when I asked if he was ready to make a different choice, he said he would go get dressed right now. And he did.

I will remind him again of the absolute tonight before it's time to get ready for bed. I will remind him again tomorrow morning and evening as well. And depending on how things go, decide if I can move back to lifting the absoulte and reinstating the choice of, "Are you going to listen and get dressed or are you going to have a time out?"

My guess is that by Wednesday we will both be back on the right track. And then it will be up to me to stay consistant so that we don't have to do this again.

Being consistent is hard, isn't it? It's so easy to slip into bad patterns and hope that our kids will still do as we say without us putting much effort into it. Yet, being inconsistent usually results in taking up MORE of our time in the long run and getting us MORE frustrated with our kids. Where do you need to be more consistent with your kids' behavior?

My son Nate is in this wonderful phase of not listening. Right now it's mostly developmental, I know. In his little ego-centric four-year-old mind he's thinking "I don't want to listen. I'd so much rather do what I'm currently doing than listen to what you have to say." And like my daughter was at this age, he is very stubborn. If I don't give him a reason to think that listening to me is a better option than not, well...he's not going to listen. To him, it doesn't matter that it's his MOM telling him to get dressed. It doesn't matter that I explained to him that we are leaving in ten minutes. No. He's thinking, "I don't want to get dressed, and frankly you haven't convinced me that listening to you is worth the effort of getting dressed."

I have found myself, like most parents, getting lazy and instead of expecting him to listen to me the first time I ask, I give him lots of chances by coming back into the room every five miutes to tell him in my most exasperated voice to PLEASE get dressed. Cuz, "I'm not kidding. We have to leave!"

I have woke up in the morning reminding myself that doing this is not effective parenting and that today Nate will get one chance to listen. I'm going to remember to offer the choice to listen or have a time out, and I am going to follow through. And I do it. And it makes the point for a day or so only until I realize that a few days have past and I'm back to coming into the room and telling him more than once to please get dressed. And soon it occurs to me that I've been so inconsistant that even getting refocused and offering the choices isn't really effective any more.

It's when it has gotten to this point that I realize the time has come to turn "listening to mommy or daddy when we say it's time to get dressed" into a temporary absolute. Abolutes are those things that you don't get to make choices over. They are an immediate consequence for the sake of breaking a pattern of behavior. We keep a very small handful of things forever absolutes like hitting, biting, swearing (if needed)...generally those things that purposefully hurt another person. When an absoulte is broken, it is an immediate consequence. No discussion. For a preschooler like Nate, it's usually a time out. So for instance, if he were to push me out of anger, I would say firmly, "No pushing Mommy! Time out!" When used correctly, absolutes can often break a behovior, such as hitting within a very short amount of time.

As parents, we don't have many absoultes because we want kids t0 take responsibility for their behavior, we want to give them a sense of control over their lives, and we want them to learn to make choices so that they are prepared for making the millions of choices they will have to make on their own in their lifetime. Overall, studies show that offering choices and following through with logical consequences is the best way to change behavior and for long-term learning to occur. But ocassionally, and I emphasize the occasionally, we need to institue a more pure behaior managment-type approach and turn a behavior that is chronic into an absolute temporarily. This way, the pattern in poor behavior can be broken and reset to a level that reinstituting choices for that behavior again can be effective.

I realized this morning that often times turning something into a temporary absolute is as beneficial for me, the parent, as it is for my child. Because, Nate's failure to not listen to me is mostly my fault. I have not been consistant in my expectations for when he needs to get dressed. I have not done a good job of letting him know that when I say "It's time to get dressed" he knows it's in his interest to do that "right now." He knows that usually I'm going to come in and tell him three or four more times before I really insist that he gets dressed. I need to get us BOTH on the right path again.

So, this morning one of the first things I told him was, "Nate, starting today, when I tell you it's time to get your clothes on, you need to do it right away. If you don't, it will be an immediate time out." This is my way of informing him that and absolute has been instituted so I'm not blindsiding him with it later. We ate breakfast. And we talked about what was on TV. And then I told him it was time to get dressed. I didn't leave the room. I waited to see what he was going to do. And my sweet little boy huffed and sat on the couch with his arms crossed in defiance.

"Bummer. Time out, Bud for not listening and getting dressed when I asked you."

I picked him up an put him on the stairs without any further discussion. He sat there for his four minutes. When it was done, I asked him why he was in time out. He correctly told me he was there for not listening when I told him to get dressed. I reminded him that I did tell him that if he chose not to listen to me when I told him it was time to get dressed that it would be an immediate time out. He remembered. And when I asked if he was ready to make a different choice, he said he would go get dressed right now. And he did.

I will remind him again of the absolute tonight before it's time to get ready for bed. I will remind him again tomorrow morning and evening as well. And depending on how things go, decide if I can move back to lifting the absoulte and reinstating the choice of, "Are you going to listen and get dressed or are you going to have a time out?"

My guess is that by Wednesday we will both be back on the right track. And then it will be up to me to stay consistant so that we don't have to do this again.

Being consistent is hard, isn't it? It's so easy to slip into bad patterns and hope that our kids will still do as we say without us putting much effort into it. Yet, being inconsistent usually results in taking up MORE of our time in the long run and getting us MORE frustrated with our kids. Where do you need to be more consistent with your kids' behavior?

2-hour Time Out

One of the best pieces of advice I can offer parents is to always be more stubborn than your kids. Believe it or not, my kids are VERY strong-willed and if they didn't have a mom who was the same...well I can't imagine what nightmares of kids they would be. Instead, I am thrilled to say that I have two very opinionated, often strong-willed children, but that's a quality in them I love instead of feel threatened by.

I have many examples of how this strong-willed side of my children have manifested itself, but today I will share the most recent with my now four-year-old, Nate.

It all started before I even came to pick my son up. My good friend and I exchange childcare with each other so that we can both get an extra half-day of work in each week. Nate spends the day with his best friend on Tuesday afternoons and I get the boys Friday afternoons until we meet up again at the elementary school where we both pick up our daughters from kindergarten.

On this particular Tuesday, Nate had somehow hurt his friend at his house and had refused to say, "sorry". Instead he tried to justify the reasons why he shouldn't have to. My friend tried to explain to Nate that it was always important to say sorry to someone you've hurt however it happened or whatever the reasons. My strong-willed child refused. Time out was given, and at the end of his four minutes, Nate STILL refused to apologize. Nate stayed in time out despite many opportunities to chose to come out if only he would say he was sorry to his friend.

Now my friend came to a dilemma. It came time to put the boys in the car to go meet up at the school. Nate dug in his heels and refused to apologize and chose instead to not talk or play at all through the whole car ride and waiting time at the school.

Then I showed up. Nate saw me coming and I think knew in his heart that he was not going to win this one in the end. But determination set in and he was going to try. He sat himself as far away from me as possible and pouted while my friend filled me in on what was going on.

Ready to take over now, I casually walked over to my son with a, "Hey bud! I understand that you need to say sorry to your friend for hurting him. Are you ready to go do that?" No answer.

"OK Bud. Then you can sit right here in time out until you choose differently." I picked a place closer to me for him to sit to show him that he didn't get to call the shots until he started making better choices. He sat there and sat there. Every couple minutes or so I'd check in with him and see if he was ready to chose to come out of time out. But he wouldn't even look at me much less talk.

My friend tried to help out by staying around as long as they could just in case Nate became ready. But time had run out for them and they had places to be. I too had errands I needed to run. So, I went to Nate and said,

"You know what Nate? You have two people that you need to apologize to. Your friend for hurting them and My Friend for not listening. You will stay in time out until you do that because it's important to say sorry when you've done something wrong to someone. Just so you know, you do not get to do anything until that happens. We are going to two stores now. You will not get to have a free cookie at the grocery store or get to chose any of the things we're getting as long as you're in time out. There will be no special treats at the other store we're going to for kids who are in time out. And Bud, there is no dinner, video games, TV, nothing for kids who are in time out. It's up to you when you decide to say sorry and when you get to do things again. Just let me know when you're ready."

I gathered my silent little boy up and walked him to the van. And then began directing all of my attention to my daughter. A couple times Nate wanted to participate in the conversation to which I'd say, "Oh Nate! Are you ready to apologize to your friend and my friend? You need to do that first before you can talk with us." Immediately, Nate would get quiet and go back to his pouting posture.

Nate made it through the grocery store refusing to talk and acting like he didn't care that he didn't get a cookie. Though a bit surprised at how far he was willing to test me, I wasn't worried. I knew I could always be the more stubborned and would take it all the way to bedtime and the next morning if I had to.

It was the second store that he caved. We were at Office Max. And I knew just the right button to push. I said, "Isabella, I'm really thirsty. I'm going to grab a drink. Would you like an orange soda?" Nate perked up wanting one, too. "Bummer, Bud," I said. I can't give you a drink while you're in time out." We made it all the way out of the store and into the van when Nate suddenly transformed into a very happy boy. "Mom!" he exclaimed. "I'm ready now. I want to say sorry to my friend and your friend." I told him I was very happy to hear that. But first I had to make sure that this was a good time for our friends. I texted my friend to see if it was OK for Nate to call him. It was. So I handed the phone to Nate and reminded him what he had to do. He did it perfectly. He first said he was sorry to my friend for not listening. My friend forgave him. Next, Nate asked if he could talk to HIS friend and then apologized for hurting him and even added a "you're my friend and I love you" to the mix.

All was resolved. And two hours after it all began, my sweet boy who was no longer in time out, got to share the orange soda with his sister.