We finally get home from our errands of
the day. Jesstyn had earned 2 chores earlier in the day and she
starts doing the first one just fine – wiping the kitchen floor.
She wipes most of the floor with some spray and a sponge, focusing on
big, obvious spots. Thinking she was finished, she leaves the job to
go do something else. On her way, I say, “Wait a minute, remember
what to do!”
She twirls on the stairs and flops down
on them, (I'm still in the kitchen) and says, “What else do I do?”
“Come in here so we can talk about
what we see.” (I see large sections of the floor that were
overlooked).
“I am listening right here,” she
says, apparently too lazy to get up and come back into the room.
“I know, but I want you to come in
here so we can look at this together and talk about it.”
“Why do I have to come in there?”
“Because I want you to be able to see
what I am talking about, so please come in.”
“Why can't I just stay here because -
”
“Sweetheart,” (I was doing really
well at keeping calm this time. Calm leads to more calm, right?)
“I told you my answer: that I want
you to see what I see. Now please come in here.”
“You interrupted me!”
“That's because -”
“I wasn't finished speaking!” (By
now she had actually migrated into the kitchen).
“Okay, fine. I'm sorry I interrupted
you. What did you want to say?”
“Well,” (she looks around for a
second) “I would know what you were talking about even if I was
still on the stairs.”
“Okay, but you are arguing. This is
the type of thing that is going to earn you a major maintenance.”
Still calm. Doing very well. No attitude in Mom. I continued to
explain her behavior a little more clearly. “Do you understand?”
(Meanwhile, the toddler's glue project is going awry and I have to
pause my conversation with her to teach him how to properly use a
glue stick without pushing all the glue up to the top. He resists and
I tell him I will take it away unless he uses it appropriately.
Mercifully, he agrees and starts gluing again).
She nods in response to my question.
“So I'm not going to give you the
major maintenance this time because we're still learning about this.
But I want you to understand that this type of interchange between us
where I ask you several times and you do not drop the subject and
accept my answer and obey, is what will earn you a major maintenance.
Okay?”
“Yes! I understand! You don't have to
tell me again!” (with attitude).
“You are not being calm right now.
The way you just said that was disrespectful, okay? That earns you an
extra chore, too.”
She sort of looked to the side and
seemed to take a moment to register that. (I seriously don't think
she always realizes the attitude in her voice as inappropriate –
she was so immersed in it with her friends in public school that it's
just there. [Note: Since I last wrote this sentence, I read
Nicholeen's advice about making sure your tolerances are low instead
of high. Now I see that my daughter speaks this way, not only
because of outside influences, but because I have tolerated it for
years without realizing it.] Of course, yesterday, after reprimanding
her for wagging her head at me and putting her hand on her hip while
speaking to me with raised eyebrows, etc, I caught myself doing the
very same thing back to her later in the day. I said, “There I just
did it to you, didn't I?” We just smiled, then laughed, and I said,
“We're all working on this, aren't we?” She said, “Yep.”)
Anyway, back to the story.
“So are you ready to talk to me about
this last job of wiping the floor?”
She nodded.
We go over checking for missed spots,
redoing them, cleaning the sponge, closing the bottle sprayer and
putting the bottle away. She does all of these very cooperatively,
almost showing off how well she can do this “following
instructions” thing.
I praise her and thank her. I tell her
she did these so well that I'm going to take away the chore she just
earned. But she still has the second one from earlier, so we have to
do that and I'm going to have her wipe the bathroom mirror.
Instead of just setting it all up for
her, I remember what I read recently about working with your children
and taking the time to teach them how to do jobs correctly, etc. So I
waited for her follow me in and asked her questions and helped her
think through properly removing toothbrushes from the counter before
spraying, etc and we go through this process. I leave to help the
toddler with gluing again and she comes into the kitchen and sits
down to glue with us a few minutes later.
I say, “What's the last step of
following instructions?”
After a second, she says, “Report
back!” proud of herself for remembering.
“Yes, so...?”
“I did it!”
“Okay, let's go check it.”
“I want to glue. You can check it.”
“No, I want you to come in here so
you can see what I see and we can talk about it.” (she caught the
same language from our earlier confrontation). I was in the bathroom
at this point.
She says, “Coming!” and runs right
down the hall to join me.
I look her in the eye and say with a
big smile, “Thank you for coming in here when I asked you to. It
makes me feel really connected to you right now.” She smiles
proudly and I give her side arm hug and we look at the mirror. I
continue to teach her about properly cleaning a mirror. There were
streaks and missed spots. We talked about them and she made
suggestions and I guided her along.
I was a happy teacher and she was a
happy student. We were connecting, while she was being
“disciplined” for something! We were connecting during the
administration of a consequence.
It's not that I have never connected
with her before while teaching how to do a chore. But this time, it
was a result of our family system of teaching self-government and she
was contributing instead of arguing or sulking. It was
amazingly fulfilling as a parent. I felt so good!
I have been so inspired by Nicholeen
Peck's program for Teaching Self-Government to families. I hope my
readers will visit her blog at www.teachingselfgovernment.com.
Ever since I learned of her, I just want to shout her message to
everyone! She truly is bringing freedom to families.
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