Character Training with a TV Remote

January 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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Daddy Life Podcast Episode 33 - Training Character with TV RemoteAnne Marie Ezzo shared a blog post on her Facebook page recently that was authored by Mark Gregston.

The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Mark Gregston

”A recent Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, shows that 61% of teens admit to lying to a teacher about something important, and a whopping 76% admitted to lying to their parents last year.  Another study, this one conducted in Britain, indicates that an overwhelming 84% of teens said they’ve regularly copied information from the Internet and pasted it right into their homework.

But it wasn’t necessarily those numbers that shocked me.  What really rocked me back on my heels was that this recent study of American teenagers reported that while over 50% of teenagers admitted lying, cheating, or stealing within that last year, 93% of those same kids said they are “satisfied with their personal ethics and character.” In addition, 81% of those teenagers said that “when it comes to doing what’s right, they are better than most people they know.”

The point Mrs. Ezzo made was that (I quote),  “While this blog post is addressed to parents of teens, parents with younger children would be wise to heed the thoughts expressed and thereby wisely help to prevent this issues from developing in your own home. Remember “begin as you mean to go” if you desire to have an honest child, then even those ‘creative stories’ need to have boundaries, we want to set our younger children [let alone teens] for success and direct help keep them on the right path.”

Mark went on to offer advice to parents on how to shift the trends so that teens embrace the virtue of truth over the norm of lying. Mark’s very first recommendation to “Monitor Media” steps into my area of expertise so I want to expand on his advice.

We all know that we can’t monitor every single thing that our kids do. Even if we try we have to be realistic and admit that if we are faced with a kid that is already characterized by dishonesty, deception, and lying then they probably will take steps to avoid our efforts to monitor. How many of us can actually keep up with our kids in terms of technology anyway?

I have shared this example before, but I believe it is worth repeating again and again.  Technology security is more about behavior than the technology!

You can try to monitor and control your kid’s Internet or TV access, but you are only treating the symptom. You must get to the heart if the issue and then end result will be that your child will self regulate their Internet, TV, movie, and gaming activity. They are going to get there soon enough so you might as well teach them early.

Teach Your Kids to Use the TV Remote

Sounds crazy doesn’t it? One of the things we joke about as parents is how much more kids understand about the DVD/DVR and how to operate it. But do they really understand the most important features? As a parent, the two most important buttons on a remote are the “Last Channel” button (sometimes called a Recall or last) and the “MUTE” button. That’s right.

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Babywise – The Early Days

January 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This post was provided by Emily Parker from over at journeyofparenthood.com. Please join me in welcoming Emily to the Babywise-friendly Networked Blogs

I have had many of my sweet friends ask how I started out doing from the beginning. With my son, Kye, I did not learn about Babywise until he was three weeks old. But with my daughter, Brittlynn, I started from birth by using some of these techniques:

  • Focus on Full Feedings: Nothing else during the first two weeks matters. Just do your best to keep your baby AWAKE while eating to make sure they get a FULL feeding. You don’t want them to be snacking all the time…so tickle their feet, wet their little heads, do what you have to in order to keep them awake while they eat!
  • Feed On Demand: Whenever Brittlynn woke up, I fed her. Since I did focus so much of my effort on full feedings for her she fell into a natural 3 hour eating routine pretty early on. The better you do with the full feedings, the less often they will wake up hungry!
  • Wake the Sleeping Baby: Sleep is important, yes, but in the early days keeping your supply up and getting in those full feedings is TOP priority. Make sure you are feeding your baby 8-10 times a day in a 24 hour period. In the first few weeks they shouldn’t go longer than 3 hours between feedings (except after the late-evening feeding where you cross your fingers and hope they give you a little more rest!).
  • Eat-Awake-Sleep Cycle: A sleepy newborn is a common thing but even at the hospital I tried to have this cycle in place. After she ate I would try to keep her awake before putting her to sleep. Even if just for a few minutes! Literally, sometimes it was a quick second of her eyes being open before she went to sleep…but it counted 😉 Again, keeping the baby awake during feedings helps with this cycle. The only time you don’t want any awake time between eating and sleeping is during the middle of the night feedings!
  • Put the Baby DOWN to Sleep: I never held Britt to sleep. Even in the hospital I always put her down in her little crib when she was sleeping. At home we always put her in her crib or pack and play or bassinet to sleep…never in our arms! If she woke during nap I would move her to the swing to finish the nap but resisted ever rocking her/holding her to get her back to sleep. It did happen sometimes, but was always a last resort. That’s a beautiful thing about nursing…you get LOTS of cuddle time!
  • Avoid Sleep Props: With nursing you really want to avoid introducing a pacifier anyway, but I think it’s especially helpful for sleep training to not give the baby any type of prop. My son was a pacifier baby and was also a terrible napper up until we weaned him from the pacifier at age two. Brittlynn never took the pacifier and has been able to self-soothe so much better than Kye ever did!
  • Attack the Gas: Gassy babies struggle to sleep because they are in pain. Britt was a gassy baby and it did cause her sleep issues. During her (brief) awake times I would make my #1 goal helping her get rid of gas. There are all kinds of burping techniques and other tricks to relieve a gassy baby (I loved to pump her little legs! Always did the trick!) and you can also give gas drops when needed to help. A gas free baby is a happy baby 😉
  • Respect the “Schedule”: For the first couple of weeks there is NO set schedule. However, when she slept I didn’t wake her for visitors and such. People want to see the baby but I told them she was sleeping and let them know when I thought she’d be awake again if they wanted to stay. And even when she was awake she pretty much ate the entire time anyway so they could really only see the back of her head while I nursed her 😉 I would always let visitors hold and love on her as soon as she got done feeding, during those few rare awake moments!
  • Keep Sleep Conditions Consistent: We swaddled Brittlynn at the hospital and continued to do so as soon as we got home. We swaddled her every time she slept. We also made sure that wherever she was sleeping (in her room during naps, ours at night for the first couple of weeks) that it was kept very dark and that we had white noise of some kind. It’s important during awake times (feedings too!) to have the conditions be noticeably different than they are during sleep times (have it bright, no swaddling, etc).
  • REST: It is hard to do but you have to take care of yourself. Giving birth is no joke and you need your rest to be able to fully recover and give your best self to your baby. Whenever I wasn’t nursing Brittlynn I would try to soak in a bath or SLEEP. People will WANT to help you…let them. You need it! By taking care of myself I was better able to take care of her and give her what she needed to allow her to thrive 🙂
I truly believe that starting to implement the Babywise techniques from birth helped Brittlynn to develop into the wonderful sleeper she is today. It is such a blessing to have a baby who loves her sleep. We are able to spend more quality time with our son and as a family together because she is always well-rested!
Our family the night we came home from the hospital with Brittlynn!
Emily and family
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Bigger is Better

January 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

4 Boys Plus OneThe Osborne family is growing. We expect the newest of the @OzzKids to join the fun in late July of 2013. The picture on the right was taken on Christmas Eve right after we announced to our family that we were expecting #5. We wrapped a small box with the onesie inside and then wrapped that box inside another and so on until we had it six or seven boxes deep. We passed the box in a circle while playing Jingle Bells (Levi’s fav) and the person holding the box when the music stopped had to open a layer. The news seemed most surprising for Caden and Josiah. You can see in the picture that Josiah was still in shock a few minutes later when we staged this picture. Caden is shown below with his initial reaction.

I think our extended family has finally come to a point where they are no longer surprised. Most thought we were crazy for having another child after Caden given the medical challenges we still battle with him. Caden was born with a deletion of his 22nd chromosome called 22q11.2 (DiGeorge Syndrome or VCFS). This has come with a host of open heart surgeries, back surgeries, exclusive tube feeding, and much, much more. While Sherry certainly does carry a heavier load with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and home schooling, the logistics of dealing with Caden’s frequent hospitalizations has really not changes much with the addition of Josiah and Levi. From the time Caden was born we had one child in the ICU and one at home that required our love and attention. Most Caden Reacts to hearing he will be a big brother againrecently we have just had multiple children at home when Caden has been hospitalized. I don’t expect the future to be much different with the new addition to our family when Caden has surgeries because we will still have children in two different places that need their parents. That has become a normal for our family that we have learned to live with and deal with fairly well.

So the long and the short is that we are very excited to be growing our family. We think that Bigger is Better and thank the Lord for blessing us with another child. We love all of the children God has blessed us with and can’t wait to meet the newest addition to the Osborne gang. As I said earlier, the emotions have been mixed within the family. As shown here, Caden was a little surprised, but pleasantly surprised. I have decided to start telling people that we are trying for 14 kids and that is what the number on my hat represents. It is actually the number of my favorite NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, but I thought that referring to the number as the target for number of children was a great way to stifle the comments about our big family. The idea was not my own, my neighbor came up with the idea during a New Year’s Eve Bingo party that Riley and I attended.

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and a trust that your New Year has begun with great joy and thanksgiving.

 

 

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Kindle Fire FreeTime Parental Controls Review

January 4, 2013 By 1 Comment

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Daddy Life Podcast Episode 32Kindle Fire FreeTime Parental Controls

How Kindle Fire FreeTime works

FreeTime is an App that some preloaded on new Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD readers from Amazon.

What Kindle FreeTime does well

– Control amount of time kids spend on the three categories available (Apps, Video, Books)
– Restrict access to parent Kindle system apps, videos, Internet, Music*, Books
– Tracks book reading progress separately between parent and each of the kid profiles in Kindle FreeTime. My wife and my son are both reading The Roman, The Twelve, and The King by Jenny L. Cote. My son generally stays ahead of my wife so his place is saved in his FreeTime profile and does not affect the last read place saved by my wife in the main Kindle OS.

Kindle FreeTime failures with some workarounds

– Music is not accessible from within Kindle FreeTime with apps and services built in by default

Workaround: Install a music playing app. Then add the Music player app to your child’s Kindle FreeTime Apps. WARNING: The music app will burn up app time. There is no way to limit screen time per App so all apps count towards daily limit.

– Kindle opens into the last profile used in FreeTime or the main full featured profile if FreeTime was not active during last shutdown.

Workaround:

–  Kindle Fire has the ability to load a screen lock pin. We share this with our oldest son who is the primary user. We (my wife and I) are diligent to log into FreeTime and enter into Riley’s profile so that the Kindle will open back into his profile when the screen lock pin is entered. He gets to protect access to his apps and books from his younger brothers and we know he is only accessing his content because the Parental Controls password must be entered to get to the root OS of the Kindle Fire.

Kindle FreeTime Feature Requests Wish List

– Five minute warning before time allocation is up
– FreeTime profiles tied to screen lock PINs
– Add a music category that works like video category where parents can choose which songs kids can listen to. Then FreeTime App time is not eaten up by listening to music with 3rd party app.

PARENTING News

The Ozz family is growing.
Babywise Friendly Blog Network – Check them out

The Journey of Parenthood
Childwise Chat
Chronicles of a Babywise Mom
Daddy Life
Graceful Mom
My Baby Sleep Guide
http://www.babywisebooks.com/


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Teach the Value of Giving and Receiving

December 20, 2012 By 1 Comment
child opening gift

Source: everythingellee.blogspot.com

By Maureen Monfore, www.ChildwiseChat.com

The holidays are upon us! How will your children handle the holiday?

In many homes, Christmas becomes all about the gifts: shopping, wrapping, and receiving. And for children especially, who aren’t necessarily involved in the shopping, Christmas is an indulgent time that’s all about receiving. I’ve seen many a child who opens a gift and tosses it aside to open the next one.

Christmas is a fun time with children, but it also makes parents cringe when they think of how her children might react to their various gifts. Will he say “thank you” for every gift? Will he even acknowledge the giver? Will he stop to express sincere gratitude before moving on to the next gift? Will he say something special like, “I’ve always wanted this.”

Don’t leave this to chance. Don’t teach gratitude in the moment. Plan ahead and start teaching the value of giving and receiving now.

Every year, I like to take the time to assess my kids and how they might behave at Christmas. I want to make sure they will give and receive at Christmas with grace and gratitude. My children are 8 and 5 now, so they should be old enough to understand the value of giving and receiving, but I’m not going to leave it to chance. In fact, as children get older, they tend to get a little greedier.

When my boys were little, they would open one present and go off to play with it. The adults would encourage the child to open the next gift, since the idea is that we all sit around and open gifts at the same time. Honestly, though, I’d prefer that they open one gift at a time. It can help mitigate that greediness.

So over the years, my kids have learned that opening gifts is part of our Christmas tradition. And they know enough to expect several gifts. They are also involved in the process of creating a Christmas list. While everyone likes to know what my children like, I’m beginning to think that the Christmas list isn’t such a good idea. It sets the expectation that they can request their gifts and that they will receive everything on their lists. Last year, I cringed when William said something like, “I didn’t want this.” It was an innocent comment; he just thought he was only getting what was on his list, and the gift wasn’t something he put on his list. Sadly, I had to teach him in the moment, in front of the giver.

It’s moments like that that have taught me that I need to train my children in how to behave at Christmas. I need to shape their attitudes.

So how do I do this?

First of all, have a dialogue about the reason for the holiday. We discuss what will happen and why we give and receive gifts. We explain how other family members will feel when they give my kids gifts.

Then, we do a little role-playing. It’s a good idea to sit around on the floor, opening imaginary presents. I like to play the bad kid, and show them what it’s like to say insensitive things after they give me a gift. Then we’ll try again, and I’ll be the good kid. Make the experience fun to make it memorable.

I also make a point, in these last few days before Christmas, to remind them to say thank you at every turn. Whether I’m getting them a glass of water or making cookies with them, I have them say thank you. If I get any negative attitude about this, I stop to explain the reason for gratitude.

Then on Christmas morning, before opening gifts, explain again what it means to give and receive. Remind the child of the role-playing you did and give all indications that now is the time to display grace and gratitude.

One final thing to teach is the sign language sign for thank you. If you have done all your teaching and the child still forgets to say thank you after opening a gift, you can stand behind the receiver, call the child’s name, get his eye contact, and quietly do the sign. Your child then gets a cue to say thank you without you having to verbally remind him in front of the giver.

Maureen Monfore is the author of www.ChildwiseChat.com and the eBook, Live in Harmony with First-Time Obedience. A mother to two young boys, Maureen recognizes the value of obedience and heart training in our children. She relies on the teachings of Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo to show her the way. Her eBook is currently on sale for the holidays, for $7.99, which is 20% off the regular price.

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Gun Control – NOW is not the time

December 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Daddy and Caden - Sep 2012The 8 year old boy pictured here with me has probably come closer to death more times than most people reading this post combined. He has had nearly twice as many major surgeries than he has had birthdays beginning with his first, basically an exploratory open-heart surgery at 6 days old, and has averaged 30 nights per year hospitalized since then, mostly due to life-threatening illnesses. During those 8 years I have sat many of day in ICU waiting rooms beside parents who lost children, mostly to what appeared to be much less serious illnesses than what Caden battled while we got to take Caden home. Would I like to do something? Yes! Could I really do anything in the heat of the moment to help the next parent take their child home alive? NO, but now learned over time that I do try to help them prepare for the seriousness of the situation! More on that in a minute. But in the moment there is little than can be said or done to comfort these parents. They are experiencing a grief like most of us have never had to face and prayerfully will not have to face. So what can be done RIGHT NOW?

What we need to do right now is to quietly love on these people who have lost loved ones… especially those parents who have lost a young child.

How you might ask? In my opinion we should start by doing what Job’s friends did at first. They got things right with their initial response to Job’s grief in my opinion. They sat with him without saying a word for seven days and seven nights. There is nothing we can do or say for those hurting right now. Reference: Job 2:13

Am I saying that I am opposed to talking about new gun laws? NO!!! What I am opposed to is talking seriously about new gun laws in the heat of the moment…just as much as I am opposed to talking new laws governing surgeries or ICU procedures before the parents sitting next to me at a children’s hospital have even had a chance to bury their child. I believe we should step back and take a deep breath and realize that this time should not be about trying to fix anything, but simply being there for those who hurt so bad…while we still get to tuck in our kids or other loved ones safely tonight. Getting you and your family right with God, understanding and accepting Jesus’ gift of eternal life through salvation, is the most  important thing you can do, especially given the increased frequency of events like this one at the Sandy Hook school in CT. There is NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW for our family than understanding, accepting, and sharing the message of God’s gift of salvation.

For several years now I have been able to hand off my son to a surgeon or ICU nurse without an overwhelming fear of losing him because of the peace I have. My wife and I get asked often when our son Caden is facing a very serious condition or surgery, “How do you do it?” (remain so calm and peaceful) It is not easy or simple and I am completely convenced that our ability to handle life threaten situations with our son is not within our own power. As said so plainly by Dr. Charleston Stanley, “Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.”

If you want to have that peace then I am happy to share how I got it. The peace did not come immediately or easily. But it came painfully over a period of years by watching others lose kids and by facing very tough odds of survival with my own child. All this while becoming increasingly convinced that we are not in control of everything no matter how much we would like to be. So we and our children should be focused on what does matter most and what we can control. Those two things are one in the same. We can control whether or not we accept God’s gift of salvation. Podcast episode 19 outlines a pretty good understanding of God’s gift of salvation which is the first step I took towards a peace when facing death. Ephesians 2:8-9 There is more to it, but that is the most significant step you have to take first. I’ll share more on my journey to peace at a later time.

Please pray for peace and comfort for the families as they grieve. Don’t try to do something, because there really is not much a stranger can do at this time other than to lift these hurting people up to the Lord in prayer. None of us will be able to understand why all these terrible things happen in this life. I am certain that God will use these things for the good of those who put their trust in Him. Reference: Romans 8:28 In the meantime, realize how precious of a gift you have to spend another moment with your loved ones and make the most of it.

The Father’s Mandate is a great place to start with the most important mandate being the last one. I share my implementation of the Father’s Mandate in Episodes 12-19 of the Daddy Life Podcast. All episodes can be found on iTunes. Love your children now. Share God’s word with them and teach them the importance of knowing and accepting God’s greatest gift, eternal life through salvation.

May God Bless You and Yours!!!

Photo by: Refuge Studios
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Gingerbread Train and Gluten Free Train

December 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

JJ Rice Crispy Train Engine

The Christmas season brings out the creativity in the Osborne family. This year we baked gingerbread and created our 7th annual Gingerbread Train. Since we have five year little Josiah who is allergic to wheat and egg we had to get creative to come up with a train that he could decorate that would have no wheat or egg. Our Gingerbread train dough is made from wheat flour and the glue that holds everything together is made of Royal Icing which is predominately egg whites and powdered sugar. More on that train in a minute.

Here are some other pictures of Josiah’s Gluten-free train made from Rice Krispies® treats.

Josiah decorating the Rice Krispies Train

Josiah had a blast with this train project and was so tempted to eat it while decorating. As a matter of fact, as of today the train actually does not exist anymore. JJ has consumed the entire train after dinner each night while we read our Advent story Bartholomew’s Passage.

JJ and his train

JJ’s little train

As the title suggests the fun also included a 2012 Gingerbread Train. The first picture I have to share is of the entire family. Then below that I will show you some individual cars so that you can see some of the detailed decorating Riley, Caden, and their friend Noah did.

2012 Osborne Family Gingerbread Train

Osborne Family with the 2012 Gingerbread Train

Gingerbread Train Engine

Gingerbread Train Engine

Treasury Car

Treasury Car – some years we make this a coal or rock car

Gingerbread Lumber Car

Lumber Car – carries candy cane logs held together with fruit strips

Gingerbread Train passenger car

Passenger Car – Custom Made Osborne Family Addtion

Gingerbreat Train Caboose

Gingerbread Coboose – Riley’s Favorite to Decorate

Gingerbread Train Decorating

Riley and a friend decorating the train

This gingerbread train takes us three afternoons to make. Sherry normally mixes and chills the dough a few days before baking. Then I spend an afternoon with the boys cutting out pieces and baking. This process takes several hours. This year we made a little extra so Riley’s friend could decorate his own train engine and take it home. They are homeschool buddies and spend a good amount of time together during the school year. the picture above shows how messy the third and final day of the gingerbread train process takes. This is the assembly and decorating day. This year I packages each trains pieces in a separate container so it would be easier to figure out which pieces went with which car. It was also the first year that I did not participate in the decoration and assembly of the gingerbread train.

We hope you enjoyed this look at our 2012 Gingerbread and Gluten-free trains. You can get more details on how we make the Gingerbread Train at Grill’n Time. Also be sure to check out our previous six years of gingerbread trains.

 

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Gingerbread Train – Christmas Tradition

November 26, 2012 By 1 Comment

2010 Gingerbread Train Engine

The Gingerbread Train will be pulling into the station in the Osborne household for the seventh year in a row very soon. This has become somewhat of a badge of our family identity during the Christmas season with close friends and family. We normally begin the process of making the dough and cutting out the pattern sometime in early December. We try to have the train assembled by the middle of December so we can use it as part of our Christmas decoration process. We have begun to take inventory of supplies and are talking about how we might change things up this year.

One change this year is that we are going to try a small gluten free gingerbread companion house. We are also going to try to make some type of royal icing without egg whites to use to assemble the gingerbread house. Our 5 year old Josiah is allergic to wheat, egg, and nuts so he cannot participate with hands on decoration or assembly of the gingerbread train. Any ideas you have on gluten free dough or egg-free royal icing would be greatly appreciated.

If you are a homeschool family this is a great project to work on for art and cooking. There is also plenty of room for creativity in the area of math and geometry. We designed our own gingerbread train cars for 2008 and 2009. You will notice the tanker card in the 2008 photo below and the passenger car in 2009. These were not designs offered by the original magazine article that we used to start this tradition.

Below is a picture of each Gingerbread Train from years past. You can also learn how to make your own Gingerbread Train by following the process we have used since 2006. The entire process is described with lots of picture over at Grill’n Time.

2006 Gingerbread Train

2006 Gingerbread Train

 

2007 Gingerbread Train

2007 Gingerbread Train

 

2008 Gingerbread Train

2008 Gingerbread Train

 

2009 Gingerbread Train

2009 Gingerbread Train

 

Gingerbread Train Daddy Life

2010 Gingerbread Train

 

2011 Gingerbread Train

2011 Gingerbread Train

What fun family traditions do you have centered around the Christmas season?

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Luck or Babywise?

November 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Emily Parker over at The Journey of Parenthood has found freedom from that nasty four-letter word that so many Babywise fans face. LUCK. Emily has dispelled the myth of luck in parenting by repeating her results of having a content and well-adjusted child who sleeps through the night and naps like a champ. All too often parents who use principles from On Becoming Babywise are told how “lucky” they are to have such a content baby.

Emily shares har passion for Babywise and the results that the principles have delivered for her entire family. Visit her blog and welcome her into the family of Babywise Friendly BLogs.

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Terrible Twos or Terrific Twos

November 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

Terrible Twos vs Terrific Twos

An adult that swings between terrible and terrific as often as a two year old usually ends up with a psychological diagnosis. A two year old can take you through the process of loving or despising even the thought of having more children multiple times within an hour if you rely solely on your feelings. So what do we do with these feelings? In short we need to avoid letting our feelings and emotions drive our parenting.

My wife and I were surprised when we were told by our friends Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo that the “twos” are more like a measure of a period of time between the ages of 14 and 40 months as opposed to being an age of two years old. They share this fact with parents to give them comfort in the fact that these behaviors seen during the “twos” are normal and can be experienced for a longer range of time than some parents realize. The Ezzos remind us that kids are going through some of the most dramatic changes they will experience in their entire life. These changes are social, physical, emotional, verbal, and cognitive to name a few.

The picture above represents a difference in responses from my son on his 2nd birthday during a span of 14 seconds. These little “twos” can turn on a dime and we as parents need to realize this in our child’s life and prepare for it. We may want to take it personal and get frustrated or even angry, but  we must remember. It’s not personal and our kids are not out to get our goat.

 There are some things we can do to make this period somewhat more predictable and pleasing.

First-Time Obedience

My friend Maureen over at Childwise Chat blogged about this subject a few days ago. First-Time Obedience (FTO) is exactly what it sounds like. You child is characterized by FTO  when they come to you when call them the first time. You should not have to count, threaten, bribe or even raise your voice. Training FTO is easier than you might think…for the child. Our friends the Ezzos tell us and we have proven the fact that parents are the ones who have a hard time learning FTO.

Self Control

We train self control this using several methods, but the most popular is to use sit time. I am not talking about a reactive time-out to a bad behavior, but a proactive process of training your child to sit for a predetermined amount of time. With the little ones we start out having them site with hands folded and legs crossed for a few seconds. We increase the length of time as the days and weeks of training pass by. Before you know it you have a two-year old who can sit for a few minutes at your request in a public place without getting up. As the Ezzos teach, one of the most important thing to remember with something like self-control training is that you can’t expect your child to do in public what you have not trained in private or times of noon-conflict.

Feed the Beast

Appeal to your child’s development process. Given them activities that will reach them through all of their senses. My wife likes to do things with things like sidewalk chalk. Your kids get to make a mess of the driveway and at the same time they are seeing bright colors as they feel the resistance of the chalk against the concrete as it make s very distinct sound.

Make Use of Time

Know your child’s best times for going out or having friends over. There are times when having a play date with a friend is just not a good idea. Your child needs to be rested and can’t be hungry if play dates are going to be successful. In most cases kids at this age have a short attention span so you should not expect your child to play nice in the sandbox with three other kids for an hour and a half while you talk with your friend. Kids need room to move.

Be Directive

It has been said a million times but we parents have such a hard time getting this one through our thick heads. As parents we must direct our little ones rather than constantly chasing them around saying “NO”. Rather than be reactive to what they should not be doing we need to work on being proactive and telling our kids what they should be doing. Do these things and have more terrific moments than terrible moments.

What things do you do in parenting to bring about more terrific two days?

 

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