Missing Keys

This morning I was about to blow it... again. Continuing in my quest to implement Nicholeen Peck's state-of-the-art Self-Government system in my home, I recently realized that a few key elements were missing from my parenting. There's the obvious: my own self-government skills – the ones that I'm working on developing so that I can actually stay calm during all these 'teaching moments' with my children. (But I am making progress!) Then there's the not-so-obvious: 1) practicing the right way to do things when something has gone wrong and 2) teaching my children to think of their daily life as filled with privileges that they are earning.

Now that I am in my second trimester of pregnancy, the morning sickness is gone, but instead I wake up with the morning grumps. So after a tough emotional journey toward getting myself started for the day, the kids and I began our typical home school routine.

One of them had moved the sit-n-spin into our kitchen, right to the very spot where we stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance and our Family Mission statement. So, naturally, they fought about who would stand on it during the Pledge. That was just the beginning of a series of serious rude behaviors. By the time we reached the time for our hymn and scripture reading, each of the children had earned a handful of chores. The voice of discouragement rang loud and clear through my mind about how our school today was going to be a series of battles and take longer than it should. I was already feeling like a failure for not teaching enough the day before. Satan always tries to make me feel like a failure when the children are acting up because surely this is a reflection of my poor mothering skills. There was no sense of calm in my heart. After sending the little one to Time Out so that he could “get ready to follow instructions” I just stood there for a moment, clenching the dry erase marker in my hand very hard and closing my eyes, fighting for a sense of calmness and some form of guidance about how to proceed.

My daughter watched me fighting for control as I followed the one idea that came to me. I brought out the Children's Songbook and shakily announced that instead of singing our normal one song, we would sing several. I could see in her face that her heart became filled with compassion for me and as we sang, she quickly wrote a note and placed it in her own makeshift envelope and handed it to me. Hearing the singing, James rejoined us, although still showing signs of grumpiness. I read her note which said, “Dear Mommy, I love you So Much. Love, Jesstyn.” I was so touched by her kindness that I lost my voice for a line or two in the song. She beamed and came to snuggle for the rest of “I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus.”

The singing and her kindness brought the Spirit back into our home and I was able to be calm and think through what was needful. Too often in my parenting, I am too concerned with keeping our schedule or continuing with my agenda/project/task for the moment. I skip over the seemingly time-consuming parts of the Self-Government system, one of which is practicing the right way to do things. I do usually remember to tell the child what the right way to handle it was, but very seldom do we actually take the time to role play and practice it. Today, once I could feel the Spirit again, I could see that my little one still had not had a change of heart. I could not continue with our lessons for the day until he was a happier boy. So for the next fifteen or twenty minutes (maybe it was only ten minutes, after all, I'm not sure), we role played and practiced the right way to communicate about the sit-n-spin.

This small investment of time made a huge difference in how both children responded to my teaching and reminders about good behavior for the remainder of our morning. The acting out of choosing the right put them in the mindset of wanting to choose the right for the rest of the morning. It was amazing.

In hindsight, he was probably acting up because he was feeling disconnected from me. He was already wanting me to read books to him instead of what we were doing. Had I continued with our routine, his behavior would have worsened. This simple missing key – taking the time to practice the right way with him – actually created the connection he needed at the time and filled a need so that he could feel more secure and be happier and more obedient. Nicholeen once said that the most healing thing she knew of when you are struggling is connecting with people. I am finding this to be so true and helpful for me. It works for children too! Connection! Perhaps that is the true missing key.

Stay tuned for my next post, where I will outline the change that has come over my children as they have begun to understand that free play time, media, snacks and desserts are actually privileges that they earn with good behavior and honest work.