So, Guy had some serious trouble on Sunday. Running away, laughing, and shrieking kind of trouble. I'm hoping it was a one-off, the result of too little sleep from the riotously fabulous ward campout (thank you activities committee!) .
So I e-mailed my aunties to ask their opinions about discipline, and got some interesting answers. Many of them decided against toys or snacks as the kids grew, finding they proved more distracting than anything else. One can draw anything under the sun with a kid in her lap to entertain. Two of them are adamant about making sure being in the chapel is a whole lot more pleasant than being out of the chapel. Two also told me that if the kids were out of control, spanking worked really well and was only needed on extremely rare occasions but was extremely effective.
So I'm thinking of instituting a "feet don't touch the floor" rule. I'm also going to cut out the snacks, because they always end up all over the place. Sippy cup of water we might keep bringing, since Guy tends to be a thirsty fellow. I'm also going to downsize the amount of things we bring to keep Guy amused, since this past Sunday everything ended up strewn across the entire length of the center bench and all over the floor.
I'm also going to start talking about reverence at home a lot more. We'll start enforcing it during FHE, family prayer, family scriptures, and any other time when appropriate. Hopefully the practice will help.
Wish me luck, because I have a distinct feeling I'm going to need it more than ever for the next while. I pray that Leo won't start acting up, too. That'd be a whole lot more than I feel like dealing with at this point in time.
4 comments:
I obviously haven't dealt with this issue yet..., but I know my parents did! We always had a "quiet book" that my mom made. It was filled with church-related quiet activities. I think all the pages were made out of felt or something and we could match pictures of prophets or do shoelaces around temples or things like that. I'm sure you could find some type of template online or something. I want to make one, actually--so that might be a project to collaborate on :) Anyway, we could only take it out AFTER the sacrament--so we had to be quiet and reverent through that time (about 15-20 minutes). This also went for snacks and paper/pen etc... It always had to happen AFTER the sacrament.
In teaching 1st graders I also learned that even kids who are 6 and 7 years old cannot sit still much longer than 20-30 minutes! For this reason, I think having a quiet book or some type of quiet activity is really important. I want my kids to like going to church and not act up so they "get to go play in the hall." In one of my BYU classes (a MFHD class) they talked about making it more fun inside the chapel than outside, so your kids will want to be inside with you. Our professor said that if one kid was acting up, they would take them out, but hold them tightly in their arms and they couldn't get down and play, they just had to sit there--boring! So, the kids learned quick that they wanted to be in church, where they could do a quiet book or something quiet. That might work if you have Josh take him out for the first few times.
I think cutting out snacks could be good--or maybe only bring one thing that he gets if he's doing really well (but then again--don't they get snacks in nursery? So maybe snacks aren't necessary). I definitely agree with you about toys--I wouldn't bring them, but I would look into making a quiet book of sorts. I just have great memories of it when I was little!
I also think it's good to talk about reverence at home more. I think I read in the Ensign a few issues back about a mom who was struggling with the same thing. She said that she instituted a "quiet time" during the week--for an hour or 45 minutes or something every day during the week. She'd turn on church/quiet music and have her kids do quiet activities that may or may not have been church related. This helped her kids to get used to sitting quietly for a longer period of time and when Sundays rolled around, she didn't have as big of a problem with reverence.
Anyway, those are just some suggestions. If you want to do a quiet book--I can ask my mom for what was in ours (she could probably bring it when she comes out next week) and I would love to make one too (probably will in the next couple months anyway).
Hope some of these ideas helped--even though it was REALLY LONG!
Oh...one more thing about spanking. I'm not a huge fan (I think it can have it's purpose, though, so this is not to say that anyone who does it is bad). I did learn, though, through teaching where you can't hit the kids--that there are other ways to solve the problem which are just as if not more effective. I think I would tend to try out a million different solutions before I resorted to that, but who knows when I'm actually dealing with it if I will change my mind...
Good luck!
Oh wow...that was SUPER long! Sorry!
I've heard good things about the "feet don't touch the floor". Kevin's dad used to take him out and either hold him tight or set him on the coat rack when he acted up.
God bless your cute mommy heart. Let me know what works. I'll be there in a year. Love you, and miss you guys (and lately- dinner club very much!!)
Post a Comment