The first conference I watched was, of course, Shawni's interview with Saren. I was most excited to hear what she had to say about "Finding Joy in Motherhood." Shawni discussed a few great traditions that help moms (and dads) feel the joy of being a parent - from Family Movie Night (order pizza, make popcorn, have treats once a week; rotate who gets to choose the movie, and have discussions after the movie) to Sunday Sessions with your kids where each child is interviewed for about 10-15 minutes as they discuss with their mother or father what they want to work on that week (what they can improve on or make a goal of). She discussed trying to focus more on the moment and less on the "doing." She encouraged moms to find their hardest, most stressful moment of the day and make that more enjoyable by connecting with your kids. For example, if you absolutely hate buckling your kids in their car seats every time you leave the house, try making eye contact with them and stopping the moment to say "I love you" and perhaps you will find more connection and joy in that moment than stress and frustration. She also suggested, as she has done in her blog for years, to go watch your children sleeping after a stressful day - just remember these days are fleeting and even after a hectic day when they didn't behave at all, those little kids are still angels and you get to be their mom! Find joy in that.
The second interview I watched was by Saren Loosli (co-founder of Power of Moms and Shawni's sister). She spoke about Family Systems that help organize her home, her family, and her family culture. Her ideas were so great - concrete, do-able ideas that we can start even now with young children. She discussed three types of systems: Legal, Economic, and Family Culture.
The legal system is simply rules and consequences that the family creates by asking the children what they think the family rules should be and then the parents hone in on 5 big ones based on the little ones (no running with scissors, for instance, can be easily grouped in with other safety rules to have one big rule of "we will be safe"). Saren's house rules are: peace in our home; order in our house; respect each other and belongings, asking, and obedience. Each rule must have clear consequences - usually logical or natural consequences: if stuff is left out, children must clean it up. Makes sense. If siblings are bickering, they spend time on a "repenting bench" or step where the two quarreling children sit together and stay on the bench until they can each admit what they THEMSELVES did wrong (not what their sibling did wrong), then they apologize and then hug before they can be dismissed from the bench. She also talked about some funny games that get little kids to clean their toys up. In her childhood home, her parents would have the "gunny bag" get hungry for toys. The gunny bag could only eat toys and clothes that are left out - and it becomes a fast game for kids to get their toys cleaned up before the gunny bag eats them. On Saturday, he would come back and give the toys back, but if he ate the same toy more than twice, the toy went to Goodwill because it must not be respected enough to be put away. Finally, she gave the idea of "Clean 10" when everyone has to put 10 items away before dinner.
The economic system is how the children earn discretionary money (allowance). She spoke about giving chores to each child in the house as they hit a certain age - to "certify" them in various areas (sink cleaning, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning toilets, loading the dishwasher, dusting, sweeping, bed making). I worked with Banner on towel folding today, actually. He became "certified" in folding our kitchen towels and bathroom washcloths and felt good about the job he learned. :) Once the child is certified in an area, he can sign up for that job on Sunday chore day, and hopefully he'll be excited about the great job he'll do. In addition, Saren has her children be in charge of various "zones" of the house. Each of her 5 children has one zone each month, and she says they seem to take great pride and ownership in their zone. (Zones are usually just rooms - kitchen, play room, living room, etc.) Each child also has an after-meal job so clean up is quick and easy (although, with five children, this might be easier): someone does the dishes, another the dishwasher, another has counter tops, one does sweeping, and one is general pick-up. Finally, their family uses a responsibility chart with five possible points each day of the week. The five points are earned by 1) being at the breakfast table on time and fully dressed (with socks and shoes!), 2) a job point for their after-meal job and keeping their zone clean, 3) a homework/practice point, 4) a bedtime point (clothes are set out for the next school day, rooms are tidy), and 5) a bonus point (perhaps the child did an extra job that day). Points are then turned into money equivalents on Saturday mornings.
Regarding money, the children in Saren's family are able to use their discretionary money when they want. One rule I LOVE is that she doesn't allow impulse buys. If a child wants to use money for something not already on their "wish list," they have to wait 48 hours to buy the item. The parents take a picture with the toy/item, and 2 days later, if they still want the item, they are able to use their own money to purchase it. She claims this cuts down on a lot of tantrums; parents did not say no, and often the kids decide they don't really want to spend their own money on something that was not desperately wanted. I think Banner would respond to this type of rule, and if he were spending his OWN money and not "ours," then he would be more careful in his spending, especially as he gets older. Saren often tells her children to "check their bank accounts" (once they are 8 years old, they use a spreadsheet to document their money) when they want something; it's their call, not their parents'. They can use their money for approved apps, movies, toys, games. Parents buy food, clothes, and one extracurricular activity. If they want another activity, say soccer in addition to violin parents are already paying for, the child has to pay half. Saren says her children are more devoted and responsible when they are helping pay for the activity. Children can also earn extra money by doing bigger jobs: mowing lawn, washing windows, gardening, etc.
As for family culture, this is the traditions part of family life. Some families have a family motto, cheer, or song. They have special nighttime rituals or dinner table practices. One idea I really liked was the "sweet, sour, service" idea where everyone at the dinner table (yes, make a point to protect family dinner time and eat together as a family) says what their "sweet" moment was, what their "sour" moment was, and what act of "service" they did that day.
Also, on the second day, I watched a great interview with Amy McCready on "Consequences that Work." Amy talked about the positive side of misbehavior... that misbehavior is something to celebrate as our kids are telling us something big. Misbehavior is not random; it tells parents and educators that children need "attention in their attention bucket." If they are not getting enough attention, kids will act out. Or, perhaps their behavior is a sign that we need to train them better on something - they need education and more practice at something. She went on to discuss what "consequences" are - they are ONLY for repeated patterns of behavior - not for a one-time mistake. There are two types of consequences parents should be considering for misbehavior - neither of which is a "punishment." The first is when a parent stays out of the consequence altogether: natural consequences. If a child doesn't take a coat to school on a frigid day, his natural consequence is that he will be very cold. The parent didn't nag the child to take a coat or warn him of how cold he will be, but instead, he will learn this on his own - which is more powerful than if the parent had to relay this message. These types of consequences yield the best outcomes. The other type of consequence is a logical consequence: the parent "engineers a consequence." The parent gives a statement of what will happen when a natural consequence is not appropriate. For instance, if a child doesn't want to brush his teeth, the natural consequence would be cavities. BUT, parents aren't going to let that happen! So, the logical consequence is, perhaps, that the parent will not allow foods that leaves sugar on the teeth. "I respect your choice to not brush your teeth, but we will have to change your diet so that nothing will turn to sugar on your teeth."
The consequences given to children should follow the 5 Rs. They should be:
- Respectful of the child
- Related to the behavior
- Reasonable in duration
- Revealed in advance
- Repeated back to the parent by the child
- And - the last extra step that parents can follow up with is, "What do you need to do to Remember this rule?"
Amy discussed technology as a privilege. She recommended screens be put away at least two-hours before bedtime since screens can interfere with a child's ability to calm and settle. Phones and tablets should be charged in a common area - NOT in bedrooms overnight. Parents shouldn't watch every move a child makes on the device, but instead, they should "check in" periodically. She also advocates that when a child first gets a phone, that they are trained on a "dumb phone" (a flip phone) to develop and demonstrate responsibility before getting a smart phone.
Then, she elaborated on various common misbehaviors to discuss possible consequences. For instance, fighting over toys. A consequence would be either play together with the toy or take turns OR the toy goes away. She suggested a "waiting list" be started for the toy, and then kids generally feel that they will have their fair turn soon so they usually move on to a different toy while waiting. Another behavior she mentioned was getting up and down at the dinner table (a behavior Banner really needs assistance with!). A consequence for this misbehavior could be that the child's plate is taken away if he gets up from the table: "I will assume you are finished with your meal." But, before the parent actually does this, the parent will role-play with the child prior to the meal. The child might even role-play with a favorite stuffed animal and pretend that the stuffed animal got up from the table. The child will pretend to be the parent and take the plate from the animal. This way, when it happens at dinner later, the child is fully prepared and knows what the consequence is, and he will have to decide what choice he's going to make.
On the third day, I watched my most anticipated interview. Saren interviewed her parenting guru parents, Linda and Richard Eyre. They are the authors of Teaching Your Children Values. I checked this book out from the library months ago and decided to wait on utilizing the ideas until my kids were older. However, I got some ideas from their interview that helped me know how to start teaching my boys NOW about some of the values they discuss in their book. I also bought their series called Alexander's Amazing Adventures, an audio program for kids to learn values each month. I haven't started it yet, so we will see in the near future how it goes! Anyway, the Eyres talk about how to directly teach your children values. They talk about role playing, praising, having a monthly focus, giving awards to your children for demonstrating values, etc. They recommend starting with the value of honesty, since everything is based on trust and truth. For little kids, they use a true or false game. Tell the child the sky is green, and they know to say "false." Then, something like "You like mac & cheese," and they say "true." This gets the young child into understanding what a lie and what a truth is. With older kids (elementary age), you can give scenarios and discuss different consequences of a variety of choices. For example: a cashier gave you too much money back. If you don't say anything and accept the extra money, the short term consequence might be that you have extra money to buy more candy. The long-term consequence might be a feeling of guilt or that the man lost money on a sale and has to make up the money on his own.
Other values they touched on were: courage, "peaceability," self-reliance. When they teach courage, they give awards called "Leader for the Right," when the child stands up for something. They discuss how even being a "chicken" takes courage to not give in to peer pressure and to say how you feel about being afraid. They discuss how it takes courage to be honest and courage to try new things. "Peaceability" is calmness. They reiterated their use of the "repenting bench" like Saren had done in her interview and described how they started that in their household years ago - and they told a story about how their 9 grown children all wanted to keep it when the couple down-sized; apparently, each of the kids felt that they learned a lot on that bench and it was a part of them. It's important to teach kids how others are feeling and to help them learn to recognize anger and how to "stay away from that feeling" through appropriate coping mechanisms. They encourage giving responsibility to kids to solve their own problems and not to take them on as your own as a parent. And, finally, self-reliance is taught by having kids earn their own money through jobs. In fact, their own kids learned how to pass items from one child to the other through "sell-me-downs" (as opposed to "hand-me-downs") when kids would trade items by learning to sell things they had bought with their own money. Even giving choices to young children helps them learn to make their own decisions and trust themselves to be self-reliant.
I watched another interview by Marla Cilley, aka The FlyLady, in a conference called "Are You Living in CHAOS? (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)," which was definitely something I needed to hear about! Marla talked about letting go of "perfect" and giving yourself more flexibility to just do what you can when you are running a household where small children live. She reminded viewers that homes are not a reflection of your worth, as many women often feel. She recommended starting small - just empty the sinks and make them sparkle, for example. Once you build that habit into your everyday routines, you can branch out and do other things. She also suggested keeping clutter from flat spaces... definitely a great tip, but in our house that's hard to do because high, flat spaces tend to be where we put things we don't want the kids to reach, so they easily get cluttered with random things (in the early toddler days, that means trash cans on counters and small objects that are swallow-able are elevated on these surfaces). I believe the hardest part is keeping the clutter at bay when it feels like no matter how many times I put the toys and clothes and shoes away, they end up right back where they started: in the wrong place! Little hands undo a lot of my cleaning efforts and it starts to feel pointless. But, it's definitely a good reminder to work on small tasks at a time and not get bogged down by the whole house!
Finally, I watched an encore presentation of Laura Markham's interview called "Raising Siblings to be Best Friends." To be honest, I didn't learn a whole lot from her conference, but she spoke about three distinct things you can do to help your kids be friends: model calm, peaceful responses by keeping our own anger in check; teach conflict resolution skills by walking your children through their disagreements without fixing the problem FOR them; and foster good relationships between your children by providing positive experiences for them (laughing a lot, being silly, creating opportunities to enjoy each others' company). There was a lot of discussion about walking the kids through their conflicts and what to say and what NOT to say, but mostly the more time and energy you spend in the early years teaching them these skills, the easier it will be for everyone as they grow up. The skills siblings learn by resolving conflict peacefully with each other will extend to other relationships in the future: spouses, employers, colleagues, room mates, etc. If we don't teach our kids these skills and increase their emotional intelligence, they risk having difficult relationships later on - getting fired, getting divorced, and so on. While I agreed with a lot of what Laura was saying, I thought it was a lot of common sense that didn't give me much. One thing I did like, though, was some of the wording she used when hearing two sides to the story. Statements like, "I want to hear both of you," "What's your perspective?" "I hear you. Thank you," "Okay, so now we have a big problem. I wonder how we can solve it. What can we try to work it out?" "Do you hear why ___ needs ____?" She also advocates having some physical contact with the child who is not speaking when the other is telling his/her side of the story - a touch on the arm or leg, for instance, while the other child is telling the perspective - so you are listening to one child while engaging with the other so both children feel important and heard. Perhaps the best quotation that came from this segment was the mantra: "Kids need the most love when they deserve it least," which reminded me of the point Amy McCready was making in her interview on consequences - that we need to take misbehavior as a sign that kids need more attention.
I'll definitely participate in the next Mom Conference if offered the opportunity. Not only was it helpful for my family, but I learned a lot that I can carry into my professional life as well. I'm ready to put some of these ideas into action. Sam and I have already created a point sheet for Banner to start rewarding him for special jobs he can take on to contribute to our household and to earn money on his own! I'm excited to see how it goes!
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