More on Parenting Techniques

I thought this was an interesting quote: "Emotional reactivity is a sign of unfinished business." This can be applied to us as parents and to our children...

Since there are several techniques/tools/strategies to cover, I will just jump in and list/describe each in as much detail as possible (Dr. Purvis has a video that includes several of these if you would like to watch it as well):

Manage transitions
Allow time for a change. (One great tool mentioned for this is a "time-timer". There is an app as well as one you can purchase through Amazon. I downloaded the app on my phone and I put it on my daughter's iPod. It is helpful for kids to see the time when you tell them "you have 5 minutes left".) This will begin to help kids learn time management.

Offer encouragement and praise liberally
Can not emphasize this one enough. Your littles will thrive on it. And when you tell any of your kids, regardless of their age, "I'm proud of you", it speaks volumes!

Give choices as often as you can
The "go to" choice would be, "you have a choice, I can do it with you or you can do it by yourself." (More on this below under Sharing the Power.)

Share the Power
Now, before you run away screaming, let me first explain what this does not mean. This does not mean that we allow our children to become equals with us and we have to be their best friend or allow them to dictate to us how things will go. Instead, it's us showing them that even though we are in control, we can allow some choices in their lives; we are proving that the power is ours to share. Sharing power sends the message that the relationship is focused on win-win outcomes. This can be as simple as "the blue pants or the red pants" or as complex as "you can go to the movie Friday or to the mall on Saturday". Obviously age will dictate how big of a choice they get. Another piece of this is compromises. Maybe you asked your daughter to sit at the table in the kitchen, but she asks if she can sit in her chair in the living room instead. Whether you allow this or not may mostly depend on the manner in which she asks {you want the child to learn respect for those in authority through all of this}. Or, maybe you have a rule in your house that all meals are eaten at the table. Obviously to say yes to this compromise is to go against one of family rules - which may be the very reason she is asking. An important thing to keep in mind is "does this really matter?" If you don't have any kind of rules for where a meal has to be eaten, what will it hurt for her to eat in the living room?

Redo's (i.e. "try it again")
This is one method that, to be honest, I scoffed at when she first mentioned it. I mean, really, the point is to make them mind, right? So if they don't do it right the first time, they deserve to be punished, right? This was my thinking, right up until she tied it into our relationship with our heavenly Father. He doesn't treat us like that. He offers forgiveness time after time after time, no matter how much we mess up. Goodness, I got put in my place rather quickly. To save time and space, this really does work. You have to go into it with a very calm attitude. And you have to keep trying. We use the phrase, "can you try that again?" And the first few days, you will probably receive some weird looks and some attitude. But keep at it. Just like anything else we want to master in life, it takes practice, and with parenting, even more practice. Using this technique will hopefully prevent behaviors from escalating. It's an effective way to teach and reconnect after the escalation is over as well. Generally, redo's are not effective while your child is escalated, so try to wait until your child is calm before leading him/her through a redo.

Life Value Scripts
These short, sweet, and to-the-point phrases will hopefully help keep you from slipping into lecture mode. {Kids, especially when they're younger, don't listen when we start lecturing, so we lose the opportunity to correct and connect.} The key is to repeat, repeat, repeat. And for us as parents to be kind and loving while saying them. Here are a few:

• No hit, no hurts
• Be kind and gentle
• Ask permission
• Show respect
• Listen and obey {we use this one a LOT}
• Obey first time
• Asking or telling? {started using this one - and it's adorable when she says "telling"} :)
• Say again with respect {another one we use}
• Help one another
• Stick together
• Be on time
• Remember we are one family
• Be tolerant of each other
• Keep your promise
• Wait to speak. I will listen {this one works really well, even for a toddler!}
• Use your inside voice
• Use your words {I had been using, "don't whine, use your words"}

Time-ins
This is not intended to be a punishment. It's an opportunity to help your child (and you) calm down so that effective correction and reconnection is possible. It is when you keep the child in visual proximity. It isn't timed, instead it's about letting the child self-regulate. Once he has calmed down, he is given a redo or choices. While in this "time-in", the child is given something to do, such as drawing on a Magna-Doodle. You're not rewarding their negative behavior, instead you are wanting to let him know his current behavior is unacceptable and until he can get control, he will have to do something else. Here is a link and a video that expounds upon this one even more. We have not used this one yet, so I don't have any insight to add. The major difference between this and "time-outs" is that you are not sending the child away, a very important thing to remember for your adopted child or one coming from trauma. He needs to know you still want him and love him but he needs to change his behavior.
 
Consequences
When you need to impose a consequence for your child's behavior, there are 4 things to keep in mind, it needs to be:

• Related
• Reasonable
• Respectful
• Revealed in advance

I'm now going to include a couple of techniques that are often used in child-rearing that you may want to really think hard about before using on your child.

Cry-it-out/Ferber sleep method
We used tried to use both of these. And up until last weekend, I just assumed it didn't work with our daughter (the Ferber method worked, at least for a little while, but it about killed me!). Both of these methods at their very core say to allow a child to self-sooth in order to get back to sleep (or to go to sleep). But for children coming from orphanages or those with trauma in their background, this can cause more problems than we realize as parents. Yes, we would LOVE to have a good nights sleep, but if we are inflicting psychological damage to our children, is it worth it? Children coming from uncaring orphanages are generally left alone anyway and may possibly come home sleeping pretty well, but even those in good orphanages where their needs are met, may not be soothed if they wake up in the middle of the night from a night-terror (even in good orphanages, the staff to child ratio might be 1:4). Or, when there's a storm outside and they wake up and are scared, they may not be immediately comforted, so once home, storms may terrorize them. Or what about the child that was harmed in the night? Nights may absolutely frighten her! And if we are forcing them to self-sooth, we are saying to them that we don't care that they're scared. (And we're also trying to reestablish that trust cycle as parents to this child.) Sometimes it may take picking her up out of her crib and rocking her back to sleep, other times it may mean that we're patting her on the back reassuring her that we're there. But, just like the methods above, connection is the key and these methods don't leave much room for that. And we have a child that does not sleep through the night right now! It's hard when you're both exhausted and you just want a good nights sleep. For more than 4 or 5 hours at a time. Try to think of your child in the midst of the hard times. You are helping a child become a functioning, independent child/adult. It will be worth it. (If you don't believe me, just talk to your parents!) ;)

Where does spanking fit in?
Okay, you knew it was coming...I'll finish this post up by speaking a little bit on spanking. The Bible does speak a lot on spanking...or "the rod" and specifically "not sparing the rod". My husband and I both grew up in homes where we were spanked, pretty much as the sole method of discipline. As I got older my sisters and I were also grounded. So, it's no surprise that we were 110% on board with spanking our kids when we got married and even after we brought our daughter home. And this can sometimes be effective. But just like any good carpenter knows, you need several tools in your tool belt to do a job effectively, and parenting is no different. So, I'm not saying "don't spank", what I am trying to say is that you need to understand your child and her background and make sure that spanking will not damage the relationship between the two of you or cause psychological damage to her. I know some reading this may totally disagree and think that if you don't spank very much, you risk that child becoming an disobedient, willful teenager that causes nothing but problems and is disrespectful to everyone they meet. To them I would say, that can still happen to the child that you do spank. Speaking from experience, spanking doesn't leave a lot of room for correcting the behavior as much as it does trying to bend the child's will to your own. And yes, for the strong-willed child you are supposed to "break their will not their spirit". But I think there are other ways to do that than just spanking and grounding. I have to say, Dr. Purvis is very knowledgeable and her insight into all of this has been very helpful! I truly hope you find some hope and encouragement from all of this as I have! I hope our goal for ourselves as parents, is to be the best parent possible so that we can lead our children to Jesus. So if that's the goal, in the end will it matter if all we've ever done is spank or we've used several of these methods as long as our children grow up loving Jesus and enter into a life-long relationship with Him?

I have started a page (up above) where I will try to start putting resources used in my posts as well as any others I find helpful. If you have any that have been useful to you just let me know and I will see about including it as well!