Are You SURE?

Heh! I bet you didn't think you'd see an angelic child with a post title like that. This is a picture taken quite a while ago of Rachel. She didn't want to give up her 'throne' when it was time to leave. At her age (and size) is was easy to simply pick her up but as they get older, this no longer works.

It finally came to me that I can not MAKE my children do anything any more. I simply have to explain the consequences of each of the possibilities they might choose.

I have learned much from my dear sister Suzanne. When she asked one of her sons to do something and it didn't get done she would ask if they were SURE they didn't want to do it?

    "No, I want to go play outside."

    "No, you don't."

    "Yes, I do."

    "No, you don't. You just told me you didn't want to do this chore thereby telling me you didn't want to do anything and that's OK. You don't have to do ANYTHING. Just sit down in that chair right there until everyone has finished all the chores."

If they didn't choose to go do the chores, they would have to sit in the chair in the middle of the activity and if they asked a question or made a comment, my sister would say...   

"Let me finish this real quick and I'll have time to talk to you and answer your questions."

Then she would go back to continuing from one chore to the next. She would repeat the above sentence for any conversation and if one of the other boys tried to talk to said child, she would find another nasty chore for the son who obviously had timed to stop and chat with the one who didn't want to do anything.

It didn't take long for the boys to figure out that she will find chores till bed time. They are now VERY wary when she says... "Are you SURE you want to do that?" It really makes them think about consequences. I wish I were as diabolical as her when it comes to thinking up what a child dreads as a punishment. Oh the stories I could tell....    

QOTD: About behavior... "The type that makes me laugh and cry and scream and double over and dance and walk and spit and live and die and give birth and think and stop and go and read and go comatose." Lori Ann Felker