Time Out versus Taking a Break

Time out in the stockade for poor behaviour!!

I've been thinking about time outs and how effective they are in the grand scheme of things.  What am I trying to teach my kids by putting them on a timeout for an amount of time based on me and how long I think they need to get over the problem and obey me.  How long is long enough?  One minute for ever year?  10 minutes, 15 minutes or longer because I've forgotten about them.  How is this teaching my child to handle life and prepare them for conflict resolution in their adulthood?  I am not sure.

What do we do as adults when we have reached our limits?  What is the mature thing to do to handle conflict when we are feeling ready to boil over?  Hopefully we take some time to collect ourselves, pray and calm down...essentially allowing ourselves to take a break from the situation and rethink things and come back ready to rationally handle the problem. 

Taking a Break

...this follows a very biblical model of correction and focuses on the heart with the goal of changing the heart.  God is very much concerned with the heart of his children.  He doesn't simply want us to obey and grumble as we do what he asks of us.  He wants us to turn our hearts to him fully and obey out of love and honor and respect.

So what does taking a break look like and how is it different from a time out? 

Well, with time out, we place a child on a chair or whatever and we require them to sit for a certain amt of time and then we release them when we feel they have served their sentence.  Sometimes it works and the child is cooperative enough to carry on to do what we have asked.  More often then not, the child obeys but is still angry and noncompliant.  We haven't sought out relationship with the child...we have only changed behaviour but likely not reached their heart.

Taking a break is different...I've seen this work in my children.  This is what it looks like.

My child approaches me and asks for a cookie before supper and I give them a no answer.  My child starts to whine and complain and badger me.  I explain why its not a good time to have junk and offer a piece of fruit or maybe nothing (they simply have to wait).  At this point, the child continues to argue etc...you know what I mean :)   

(This is when we are tempted as parents to get angry or to raise our voices or discipline with timeout.  Ok...here is a new scenario to consider...)

"It appears to me like you are upset with my answer.  Your attitude is not honoring to mommy and I think you need to take a break to change your attitude.  Please come back when you are ready to discuss this calmly."

 Send your child to the break place...stairs, chair, spot on the floor or where ever...makes no difference where as long it is isolated so he has time to be alone.  Now with my kids it was not an easy adjustment...they would stomp their feet, kick the wall, and other annoying things which I ignored (and still do) 

Now my job is to WAIT!

 I am not going tell my child when to return to me.  The length of that break is up to the child.  Just like the father of the prodigal son in Luke 15, I am waiting with my arms open for my child to return to fellowship with me.  Its important that my attitude is warm and welcoming and not judgemental.  (not always easy when you are irritated but I'm working on it)

It may take 5, 10, 20 or more minutes depending on how irritated the child is about the situation.  When they are ready, they will return to you to chat.  I have been blessed to see my child change in that time...from angry and defiant to warm and inviting...it is truly amazing and the BEST part is  NOW  I have their attention and their heart and I also have a teachable moment.  We can end this time with a positive conclusion.

Now, just as an adult is calm and ready to discuss matters after a break (hopefully), the child is calm and ready to discuss matters.  You can ask some questions.

1. What did you do that was wrong?
2. Why was it wrong?
3. What are you going to differently next time?

Here are your training moments.  Here is where you teach to the heart and build the relationship.

And it works!  I've seen it work with my children.  I've seen an angry child melt and come into my arms smiling afterwards. 

Here we can build up our children and tell them that we have faith in them that they won't repeat the same offence again....just like Jesus in John 8 said to the woman...."Go and sin no more"

"I believe you will do the right thing next time."

Its not easy and they will fight the process.  I send mine back to break if they haven't changed their attitude and sometimes I still have to add consequences if they refuse to change.  But overall, I have seen a wonderful change in my children since I have started this.  Plus we are teaching our children valuable skills for mature problem solving as an adult in the future!

Honor is the key.

Honor and Parenting

Sir Tanner--Gallant and honorable Knight-in-training

I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking and pondering parenting.  I have been praying and reading scripture trying to see what I am missing.  It seems that as parents we spend so much energy trying to change our children's behaviour but are we really being successful?  We focus so much on changing the behaviour but we don't focus on heart attitude.   I find myself constantly irritated and angry.  Why can't they do their chores without being asked?  Why do they tease each other?  Will they ever stop fighting?  Why do they grumble and complain?  What am I doing wrong?  UGH!  Hmmm...I wonder if that was a small sample of what God felt with the children of Israel. 

 My children and I have spent much of this year studying Moses.  It has been such an eye opener for me to study this part of the bible so closely...study people like Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Gideon, Sampson, Samuel, David...so many things can be learned from each story.  God has been speaking to me this year...He still is but I wanted to journal a bit about what I have learned and am still learning...about parenting and yes, honor.

I have a confession to make.  I suppose if this were an self-help meeting, I would stand up and say "Hi, my name is Kimberley and I'm selfish."  *smile*   One thing i have learned about myself as a parent is I am selfish.  Whew...there i said it.  They say that admitting your sin is half the battle.  Parenting is hard work.  Sometimes all I want to do is sleep in, take a hot bath, read a book or watch TV all day.  But I can't.  I can't even remember the last time I could do any of those things.  Parenting requires sacrifice and selflessness and as parents, we keep going along...although not always with honor.  Sometimes we shout or belittle or in someway injure the spirits of our kids.  Honor speaks a different language.

Honors says that we treat others as special, do more than is expected and have a good attitude.

I have come to realize that its time to change our family dynamic.  I don't simply want my kids to obey and wander off grumbling in their spirits.  I want to reach their hearts.  Honor is the key to doing that.  Honor changes how we think, act and treat others.  When we stop and think that honor is a two way street, suddenly it makes me look at my children in a whole different light.

For a knight in medieval times, duty, honor and loyalty were key to their success.  HONOR.

Honor is the key to parenting.  I FINALLY get it Lord!

Jenna's Ginger Cookies

List of ingredients:

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

2 cups all purpose flour

1.5 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1.5 tsp ginger

Mix all the ingredients together.

Be sure to measure very accurately.

Wiping your hands on your pants is optional.

Mommy suggests wearing an apron but this is much faster.

Double check all ingredients.

My favourite part is plunging my hands into the mess and mixing well.  YUCK!  Don't worry if the dough seems dry...you can always add a 1/4 cup milk to the mixture if you are concerned.

Next form the dough into balls the size of bouncy balls.

Roll the little balls in sugar and place on cookie sheet.

Do NOT press!

Cook in a 350 oven for ten to twelve minutes.

The cookies will spread out and crack.

Voila...cookies are meant to be shared so please allow to cool and....

share with your favourite OLIVIA cat!!!

Enjoy with my compliments....love Jenna





Treehouses, rain, blackflies and SOCKS!

My wonderful daddy donated cash to us to build the kids a tree house.  Cuyler is thrilled at the idea of building one.  We have wanted to build one for a long time now but never seemed to have the extra or when we did have the extra, something came along to eat it up.  The kids have a wonderful play structure and a trampoline so they are not suffering for lack of one but we just always wanted to build one.  Cuyler is having a blast dreaming and designing.  Unfortunately we have had nothing but rain for what seems like weeks now.  Cuyler did manage to get the start of a base last week when we had some sunny days.  Now we just sit and look out the kitchen window and dream of what it will look like when the rain stops.  The kids have big plans for sleepovers and sword fights and magic tree house rides into history.  I can't help but dream along with them....as we stare out the window at all the rain. 

Good news is we have about 4 more weeks of school left and we have been working hard while it rains.  YES!!  Piano exam is also on June 23rd so Jenna is hard at work practicing her scales and her pieces.  She wrote a theory exam and scored 91%...it is a wonderful grade and I am very proud of her.  My biggest concern is that she wrote the test in 15 minutes when she had an hour...the majority of her theory class took at least 45 minutes.  I know most people who wonder why I am concerned at such a wonderful grade.  The reason is I know Jenna is bright and learning comes easy to her...she doesn't have to work at it so often she rushes through just to get it done and makes silly mistakes.  I am concerned that she is relying on the fact that she is smart and that she doesn't have to work hard.  I don't want her to get prideful.  Life is work and we all need to work at things...even people who are bright need to esteem to better themselves and challenge themselves.  My concern is she is going to have many challenges in the future and she will have developed the wrong way at looking at achieving goals and not have a sound work ethic.  Yes I am an early worrier.  I've been pondering many things regarding parenting.  I plan to write about them soon as I journey along my parenting road.

My creative girl is always using her imagination...

Cutie Tater and his black fly war wounds

I grew up in Southern Ontario on a farm.  Let me tell you, no one could prepare me for living in the country in this neck of the woods!  No one could warn me that there are bugs here that are practically microscopic that can take a chunk out of you and leave you swollen and itchy for days!!   BLACK|FLIES are crazy where we live!!!  They don't care if its sunny or if its rainy...they just get in everywhere.  My poor little boy is so allergic to them...one bite swells up his ear and bruises his eye and well he was quite the mess for a few days from only a few bites.  Cuyler bought him a ball cap with a net on it so he can play outside. 

Gardening is dangerous when you live in this area because you can't even feel them bite you.  I come inside and blood is dripping down my face and running in my eyes.  These creatures are like flying vampires!  And the next day you itch and itch and feel miserable or at least I do because I am also allergic to them.  Jenna used to get so sick with fever when she was smaller that I used to have to keep her indoors for the whole month of May!!  She seems to be more immune to them as she gotten older.  Poor Tanner, on the other hand, still suffers from the bites.  He is so irritable and itchy for days.  Poor little guy!

I'm a tad irritated because again this year we haven't managed to get our garden ready in time to plant.  Last year the rototiller was seriously disabled and this year our garden is flooded and the ground is saturated and now the garden is over grown in weeds and grass.  You may think I'm joking but I'm serious!  Our ground is so saturated that it is filling up our septic system and at one point it was backing up into the house and overflowing into my washing machine!  I should have taken pictures but I was too busy bailing water and carrying buckets outside.  We had our septic tank emptied and the guy pumped for nearly a 1/2 hour just sucking up our ground water as it poured back into the tank!!  Afterwards Cuyler put a submersible pump and pumped water out into the creek for several days.  But our garden is still underwater and it looks like again we will have no vegetable garden this year.    Irritating!

Socks!!  *grin*

I was editing some pictures tonight and my husband asked me "Why do you have a picture of socks?"  I smirked and told him because I thought it was cute!  Yeah...yeah I know what he was thinking.  What is so cute about socks?  Well actually, it isn't the socks themselves but the way my son had arranged them on the dresser that I thought was cute. 

Daddy, Mommy, Jenna and his socks all ordered so nicely and folded by my six year old...life does have order even in the mind of a little boy.  

School books arrive...

One of our cats, Pepper

Every year I start to stress about next years curriculum beginning in February.  It always takes a lot of energy and time to look over everything and decide what I want to do.  I have always had this picture in my mind of what the perfect home school looked like.  Perfectly calm and happy together mom who always smiles and eager children who want to learn something new.  Pffffftttt...NOT!   I would love to use lap booking and unit studies and use Apologia science and Mystery of History and spend hours snuggling on the sofa and reading all day long.  The reality of it is that when you are schooling two children who are different genders and so far apart in age ...well its impossible to do those things without loosing your mind.  I know there are moms who do and I am in awe of them.  It is time consuming and it takes oodles of planning.  I know its fun and I know I enjoy it because I used it when I was schooling Jenna in the beginning.  It was wonderful but school took all day and my house was a wreck most of the time. 

I have always loved A Beka Book since the first time I saw it waaayyy back when I attended my first home school conference in 2001.  It is colourful and so well laid out for both the parent and the child.  I just can't say enough good things about it.  It has always been my core curriculum.  It gives my home school structure and it is so much less stressful on me.  Seriously!  I look at my teacher's book and set out the books...it tells me what to say, what to teach and at the end of the day when I put everything away, I know I have accomplished something and over the course of the year I see fruit.

Jenna has always been great at math since day one.   I am horrible at math and don't tell her but I actually hate math...you know one of those necessary evils :)    A Beka has made her love math and she is good!  She is in grade five and we are doing Streaming Video through A beka Academy and she is mostly a straight A student. 

She was so excited when her books came in that she did the first lesson in all her books for grade six!  Every subject and every lesson plus her regular work for the day.  The kid was exhausted! 

I do second guess myself everyday because I still long to do what I used to when she was little...all the fun hands on stuff that homeschoolers are supposed to have time to do...but I remember my stress level and all the planning that I did...I'm sad that I can't do it.  But alais I just can't.  So I have all those good books in my house...the apologia science and the mystery of history and lapbooking and unit studies...I leave them hanging around and my kids read the books...Jenna remembers lapbooking and she does some on her own

For now A Beka is my answer to prayer.  Jenna is going into grade six and will be a full time student at Abeka Academy.    She is excited and I'm happy.  I have found a good fit for us for now.  I now have time to keep my house somewhat tidy and time to teach Tanner and still time to snuggle up with a book now and then.  We still have time to go for a walk and play in the dirt.  We still have time to take a day off and go play with friends.  I am less stressed.  However deep down i still long for those days of creative freedom.

Here are some random pictures of school...just for fun...

Tanner showing off his phonics book!

Science collage by Tanner

Jenna's penmanship

Tanner's Language book

I am happy to say that the 2011-2012 school year is planned, payed for in full and packed away for September.  Whew...huge load off my mind and Pepper gets to keep the box!  *smile*

Instruction Manual for Safety and Comfort

I am new to using this blog interface.  I posted some deep thoughts on this picture the other day and it disappeared into cyberspace somewhere so now I am just posting the picture. 

Toshiba has created an instruction manual for the safety and comfort of their consumers.

Old news!  God created the ultimate manual called the BIBLE.

 I just found it funny that I had set the manual on top of my bible....felt like God was reminding me of something that day...thought it would be good to share.

God bless,

Kimberley

Sweet Jenna

My beautiful little daughter, Jenna

I've been wanted to start a blog for years.  It seems like so many of my friends have blogs and have said to me 'hey why don't you start a blog?'   I guess I don't have all that much time to blog but I also think that blogs can be such a great place to share your thoughts with family and friends.  So I guess it won't hurt to try to blog.  Seems like a blog is kind of like an online diary...only EVERYONE can read it.  That thought is scary in some ways.   But here goes...here are my heart ponderings for better or for worse :)

I've been thinking a lot about my little girl lately.  Hence the picture of her that I posted...my first picture on my blog and I have no idea how I did it....let alone how I will ever do it again...and hope that one day she won't kill me when she comes across it.   My daughter is growing up so fast.  She is really excited about the process. Her birthday is on May 29th and she will be eleven years old.  I can't believe it!  Where have all the years flown.   She is always eager to show me or tell me something to prove that the teens years are coming fast.  I keep giving her squishy hugs to try and slow down the growth process.  She assures me that its futile.

I love her enthusaism.  Life is so much fun for her.  She has such a sweet innocence about her.  She just enjoys living her life.  She is adventurous, creative, imaginative and extremely funny. She makes me smile everyday. 

I love you sweet Jenna.  Don't grow up too fast on me.  I'm enjoying this journey too much.  ((hugs))