Chapter 2 proves to be more inspiring, and I’m looking forward to jumping into that chapter, but this first chapter did serve as a great reminder of the value of discipline and consequences today. We had some great brainstorming ideas of different consequences for little things our teens do when they disobey. One mom has found a “consequence spinner” at http://shop.fisher-kids.com . This way the teen spins the spinner and a consequence to poor behavior is decided. There is even a “grace space!” Another mom had a jar with random chores in it for their children to grab from. This way parents don’t have to come up with something on the spot.
We all agreed that the spinner or jar would be great for smaller infractions, but good parenting is doing the right thing when the wrong thing happens. We want to teach our teens for figure out for themselves how to make good choices. “Using Love & Logic doesn’t mean we transfer all our answers or values to our teens. Instead we help place them in situations where they can discover answers and values on their own.”
We talked about how extremely our teens are changing, and that the rules of the game never seem to stay the same long enough for us stay on top of things. Many of us agreed that the following quote is something we need to have in our back pocket: “I love you too much to argue with you, and I am in no state to solve this right now, but you (…fill in the blank of wrong choice…) and you are going to have to find a solution for this. Let’s go to bed and we can discuss it again later. Let me know what you figure out.”
The rest of this book is chock full of a fresh mind-set that will give our teens wings. We will learn that parents should take care of themselves first, let our children own their own problems, and allow them to live with the consequences of their decisions.
Bring it.
See you Thursday at Symposium Coffee in Sherwood at 10am.
~k
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