I am a mother of three wonderful, adorable, and lovable children. The thing of it is, their behavior can be very stressful and embarrassing at times. I just hope that with this challenge I am giving myself, that I can find the perfect balance of how to discipline and change how the behave toward me on a daily basis. I will give an example of how today went, and the measures I had to take to finally get them to do what I asked of them.
We woke up around eight this morning, within minutes they were fighting over the toys and games in the rooms. Of course, I slowly walked back to the room and gently asked them to stop fighting because their dad was still asleep. I turned around and headed down the hallway and before I reached the kitchen they started to argue again, but this time much louder than the first time. So you can guess what I did next, I walked back to the room and again asked them to keep it down and play nicely or I would have to take the toys that were creating the fighting and screaming. The response I received was "okay" so I figured they would actually play together nicely. Was I ever wrong! As I silently picked up the toys to put them away, I got welcomed with crying and more screaming about how I was horrible and mean. I still continued to pick the toys up and set them on the top shelf in their closet. My youngest decided he would think it was a great idea to try and bite me! I placed him in time out, and time out is a "game" we play with him quite often. I place him in his time out chair and he runs off, and this will go on the whole 3 minutes he suppose to be sitting in the chair for punishment. Very tiring and very exhausting. My other two will be arguing and fighting with each other during this event with my youngest, so not only do I have one child who I am trying to punish, I have two others who I have to try and keep apart because they are hitting each other non-stop. By the time lunch time rolls around, I am ready to go back to bed. That is how exhausting the morning can be for me. As I am making lunch and getting breakfast dishes washed, my children are now fighting over the video game. I come in and turn the system off and make them sit in silence until lunch is finished. Lunch is a whole new breading ground for more fighting, I get to clean ravioli off the walls and floors! While I am trying to clean and play the time out game with my three year old, my husband decides to finally come out to help me. I try my hardest not to complain about how he doesn't help me, but of course I can't bite my tongue for long. He will quickly drink his coffee, take a shower and leave for work. Once again I am on my own trying to take care of the house and children. We then got ready to go the Easter Egg hunt that was down the road at the church, and while there my children embarrassed me severely by jumping all over the place and yelling at each other. I threatened to even leave, but I didn't want them to miss out on the hunt. Came home and they behaved for about 30 minutes watching a quick movie on the television. When it was time for dinner, I got every excuse in the book on why they didn't want to eat their meals. I was so tired that I skipped baths and put them in pajamas and let them play for a little while longer before sending them to bed.
Now this a normal routine in my day, but there are days where we will go out to the zoo, lunch. park ect.., and it will be even more of a battle to get them to listen and behave. So this is what I am going to do with my challenge. Everyday for the next month I am going to do one specific punishment and see if it will work, if it doesn't I will switch it the following month and try a different punishment and see if that one will work. I plan on doing this for the next year to see find out if I can overcome this war I have made for myself. Wish me luck!!
