Because I’m the Mom, That’s Why



Because I’m the Mom, That’s Why!

Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of parenting is discipline. We all want our children to grow up to be law-abiding, respectful young adults and yet there are so many conflicting voices telling us what to do – parenting books, the media, our parents and well-meaning friends. It’s sometimes hard to sift through the chaos and determine what’s right for our families. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I’d like to suggest a few things that may make your job a little easier.

1. An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure

I’d like to share part of a poem called, “The Ambulance Down in the Valley” by Joseph Malins (1895)

‘Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,

Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;

But over its terrible edge there had slipped

A duke and full many a peasant.

So the people said something would have to be done,

But their projects did not at all tally;

Some said, "Put a fence ’round the edge of the cliff,"

Some, "An ambulance down in the valley."

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,

For it spread through the neighboring city;

A fence may be useful or not, it is true,

But each heart became full of pity

For those who slipped over the dangerous cliff;

And the dwellers in highway and alley

Gave pounds and gave pence, not to put up a fence,

But an ambulance down in the valley.

"For the cliff is all right, if you’re careful," they said,

"And, if folks even slip and are dropping,

It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much

As the shock down below when they’re stopping."

So day after day, as these mishaps occurred,

Quick forth would those rescuers sally

To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,

With their ambulance down in the valley.

Then an old sage remarked: "It’s a marvel to me

That people give far more attention

To repairing results than to stopping the cause,

When they’d much better aim at prevention.

Let us stop at its source all this mischief," cried he,

"Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally;

If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense

With the ambulance down in the valley."

When it comes to discipline, an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure. Rather than dealing with the same situation over and over again, ask yourself, “Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening in the first place?” I went through a period of time where one of my children clung to my leg incessantly. I loved the child dearly, but by the time we sat down to eat dinner, my nerves were frayed. This sweet child and I sat next to each other at the dinner table. They would hang on my arm and want to eat my food and drink my drink and it just frustrated me so much. My husband suggested that I sit somewhere different at the table so that there was a little space between us. And would you believe – the problem was solved! Wow! Who would have thought?

If your child routinely spills milk, give them a sippy cup. If they constantly get into your knick-knacks, place the knick-knacks up higher where they can’t reach. Most problems can be solved with a little creative thinking.

2. Always start with positive reinforcement. As you attempt to motivate your children to behave, reward any positive behavior in the right direction. It’s like the game we used to play as children. We’d hide an object somewhere in the room and a person would try to find it. As they were searching, the closer they came to the object the louder we would sing. Even if your children aren’t progressing as fast as you would like, give positive reinforcement for every step in the right direction.

Sometimes when we praise children, they think we are insincere. Usually it’s because we use broad statements like “You are awesome!” or “Good job!” Linnea Hammond taught me that it very effective instead to use the words, “I noticed.” I don’t make a big deal about it; I don’t get overly enthusiastic. I simply say, “I noticed that you made your bed this morning.” “I noticed that you shared your cookie with your sister.” Then I walk away. Since we as parents tend to notice and comment on only the negative behavior in our children, this technique can be very powerful. I would encourage you to use at least one “I noticed” statement each day with each of your children and see what happens.

Speaking of noticing only the negative, let me share a journal entry with you. It wasn’t one of my finer moments.

Doug and I lectured the kids yesterday at breakfast about the need to lay out their clothes, make their beds, clean their rooms and pack their lunches before breakfast. Today as we attempted to eat breakfast, Savannah came late and Tanner and Lindsey were fighting. The kids received a second lecture during breakfast and a third on the way to school. As Paige was getting out of the car at the bus stop, she quietly said, “I had my clothes laid out this morning.” I hadn’t noticed or commented. I had just thrown her in with the rest of the kids. Moments like that make me cringe!

I have found it very effective to leave little notes on my children’s beds or in their lunch boxes when they do something well. Or just to tell them I love them. I don’t think we can do things like that often enough. I can’t eliminate all my weaknesses overnight, so why should I expect that from them? Instead of criticizing them for every nit picky mistake, we need to ask - Are they on the right track? Are they showing signs of improvement?

Children generally respond better to positive reinforcements. When our daughter Lindsey was 20 months old, she always took off her shoes in the car when we were going places. I tried disciplining her, but to no avail. Finally we decided that the whole family would cheer each time she left them on. It worked! Problem solved.

3. Define Your Child’s Currency

Dr. Phil says, “Find out what your child values – it could be a toy, a particular activity, or even a privilege like getting to stay awake to a particular hour. If you control the currency, you control the behavior that currency depends on. Once you understand what you child values, you can withdraw positive things or introduce negative things as a form of discipline.” Learning this concept made parenting so much easier for me.

Our three-year-old daughter Paige responded well to charts and stickers. I made a simple, handwritten chart with 10 squares. Each time she complied with her goal, she got a sticker. I made a big deal out of it. When she had 10 stickers, she could go to the Dollar Store and choose anything she wanted. There was a purple stuffed iguana that she had had her eye on for quite some time. It was a proud day when we went to the Dollar store and picked up the Iguana.

On another occasion, our seven-year-old daughter and her sister had trouble cleaning their rooms and making their beds before school. It was a mess every single day. I made them each a chart with 10 squares. I told them what expectations were, the level of cleanliness, etc. I told them I would just check right after breakfast. I gave them a few reminders the first few days, perhaps a 15 minute warning. When they achieved 10 stars, the reward was taking a bath in our jetted tub. It worked extremely well.

When using positive discipline in this way, here are a few steps to remember:

1. Choose one behavior at a time to correct. More than that will get confusing.

2. Determine your child’s currency (We had one daughter who would do anything for a marshmallow.)

3. Be careful about using food as a reward, however, so your child doesn’t develop unhealthy attitudes toward food later in life.

4. Have small prizes (stickers) leading to a big prize (trip to dollar store.) Children have short attention spans. Sometimes I will make a whole list of their favorite things and assign “points” to each prize. 5 stickers and you get to stay up late, 10 stickers and you get a date with Mom and Dad, etc. Let them help choose the prizes.

5. Determine an appropriate length of time to continue the program according to their age. You may need to do back-to-back programs since it usually takes 21 days to develop a new habit.

6. Always try the positive approach first. If the positive incentive alone doesn’t work, you can try adding a negative incentive if the behavior does not change. (If you keep your room clean, you get a sticker. If you don’t keep your room clean, you get an additional chore.)

Every child has a currency. You just have to figure out what it is. Think outside the box. My sister shared the following experience with me.

Our son has been our most attached child and has struggled to go to both nursery and now Primary. It’s probably because I’m in there playing the piano and he wants to sit by me. We’ve bribed him with ice cream and treats for being “brave,” to no avail. This has gone on for weeks. I tried reverse psychology by saying “Thanks for letting me go to your class. You can just stay here by yourself.” He replied, “I like having time alone.”

Finally my husband decided to make our son choose between sitting in the van with him or going to class. He chose the van. Out of desperation, my husband tried one last trick. “If you go to class, I’ll let you open all the mail tomorrow.” “OK” our son said, and went into the church. Just like that. Now, if he hesitates, I make him the same promise and he’s off to his seat. You’ve never seen a bigger smile on a child’s face as he sits down in the living room Monday afternoon carefully opening each piece of junk mail.

To potty train our son, I set an awesome toy sword on top of the freezer that he could see every day. He knew it was his when he had earned enough stickers for going potty. It worked like a charm. There have been times we’ve really had to get creative. I’ve motivated them with swinging on the swings and dropping water balloons off the balcony. One wanted to work toward going to a dog show and another requested supplies for her first aid kit. I’ve even told them, “If you all get your pajamas on in ten minutes or less Dad will stand on his head or mom will do the jump splits.” Currency for teens usually involves fun and friends. They live in the present and value privacy and freedom. Their rewards usually have to be in the present – probably nothing beyond this weekend.

It is difficult to make our children do anything, we have to make them want to do it. Once you discover your child’s currency, motivation becomes so much easier.

My sister Bonnie shared one interesting observation about incentives. She said, “We have tried individual charts, but the situation has sometimes become competitive and the kids tend to “rat” on each other. Now we set out a jar, and the kids work as a team to fill it. Whenever we “catch” one of them doing a good deed, they get to place a raisin or a bean in it. The kids decide on a group goal – camping out with Dad, going to Grandma’s etc. It can be big or small – anything that keeps them motivated.” You may want to try that as well.

Regardless of what you choose, keep it simple. The reason I like charts with stickers is that I can use it for multiple behaviors and multiple rewards. I can switch them in and out as needed.

4. Use natural deadlines.

This is one of the most valuable things I’ve learned as a parent. Since everyone likes to eat, mealtime is a wonderful natural deadline for helping children get things done. Instead of creating artificial deadlines, just simply say, “I will be serving breakfast at 8 to everyone who has their bed made.” “I will be serving lunch at 12 to everyone who has their chores complete.” “Everyone whose homework is done can join us for dinner at 6.” If you are consistent at enforcing it, it will be very effective. There was a day when my son didn’t eat lunch until 4, because he chose not to do his chores. But he didn’t starve to death and he worked much faster the next time. Stay calm and let the consequences do the teaching. You can also use their favorite TV show or a trip to town as a natural deadline.

If children misbehave I would encourage you to use a meaningful consequence that encourages them to actually think about their behavior. If you use only knee jerk reactions like spanking them or automatically sending them to their room, they are likely to repeat the behavior. As I was going through some papers one day I found a piece of notebook paper where one of my children had written 60 times, “Kicking people can paralyze them.” I don’t remember the offense that led to that consequence, but I would imagine that after writing it 60 times, that child had learned something new.

5. Be solution oriented

Several years ago when our children were small, I would sometimes complain to my husband about how hard my life was. He would listen intently, and then try to give me advice of how I could make it better. I wish I could say that I listened to his counsel, but instead I usually thought in my head, “I’m not going to listen to you because you don’t understand what it’s like to be a stay-at-home mom.” I just wanted sympathy. I didn’t want to take the time to fix the problem I just wanted to complain.

After a few years, I became a little wiser. I realized that some of his ideas were actually quite good. As an outside observer, he saw things that perhaps I hadn’t seen. He thought of ideas I hadn’t considered. I started to implement some of his suggestions. And you know what? Things got better. This was a pivotal time in my life because instead of just complaining all the time, I started seeking solutions.

When our oldest daughter was a toddler, I couldn’t keep her in bed. Every night we would struggle. At that time, I attended a parenting workshop by Loa Jenkins. I only remember one sentence of her presentation: “To everything there is a solution…..and sometimes the solution is time.” I have returned to that statement time and time again as we’ve raised our children. It gives me the confidence to know that there is a solution to every challenge I face as a parent. Sometimes that solution might be time. But in the meantime, I’m going to experiment with different things until I find the solution.

One of our challenges as a family was getting to school on time. Our bus came at 7:15 and getting several children ready in the morning was difficult. One morning while waiting for my daughter’s piano lesson to finish, I sat in my car and prayed about what we could do to find more peace in our home. The answer came as clear as day – instead of riding the bus, take your children to school. Since it meant that we didn’t have to leave until 7:35, we implemented that and we’ve been doing it ever since. Problem solved.

Each time I did our oldest daughter’s hair, she would cry. It caused contention in our home. I tried telling her stories each time. I tried time-outs, a sticker chart to go to McDonalds – all to no avail. Finally we just cut her hair short and voila! She didn’t cry anymore!

We struggled for a while getting children to behave while grocery shopping. Usually it was because they were bored. So one day I decided to give each of them a job. One pushed the cart, one got the item off the shelf, and the other marked it off the list. Another solution would have been to go grocery shopping by myself at night after my husband came home from work.

We struggled to minimize the number of snacks our children were eating every day. So finally I made a “snack bin” full of approved snacks and brought it out each day at 10 and 3 for the kids. Another struggle was getting the kids to pick up after themselves. (I’m sure none of you have ever dealt with that!) The solution we found was to get a large bin. Each time I found something on the floor that they had thrown down, I put it in the bin. It cost them 25 cents to get it out. When I did that consistently, it worked amazingly well. I guess my message is this – Instead of complaining and dealing with the same situations over and over again, seek for long-term solutions.

6. Don’t referee

I honestly don’t know why we as parents feel that it is our responsibility to solve every conflict that comes up in our children’s lives. I don’t know about you, but I spent years refereeing quarrels and disagreements between my children. If I had it to do over again, I would try to stay out of the conflict unless there was a safety issue involved.

My husband only got in one fight in junior high. A kid was bad mouthing the choir teacher and my husband told him to knock it off. The kid said, “You want to fight about it?” and my husband, not knowing what else to say, said, “Sure.” They met after class, and my husband was smart enough to let the fight start right in front of the principal’s office because he knew it wouldn’t last long. He knew someone would intervene.

Our children are the same way. If we constantly referee, they feel confident starting a fight. They know that someone will come to the rescue. If we as parents didn’t intervene, they would be much less likely to start a fight because they know they would have to finish it. It’s like two tight-rope walkers in a circus – one of whom has a safety net and the other one doesn’t. Which one is likely to be more careful?

One day my son and daughter were at the kitchen table arguing over who got to look at the yogurt box. I went over and explained to them that what I needed was a peacemaker. I explained what a peacemaker was and they immediately began arguing over who got to be the peacemaker. At one point Lindsey was on her chair screaming, "Tanner, you don't get to be the pacemaker!"

This same duo was fighting on another occasion. Lindsey at one point had her hands on her hips and defiantly said "Tanner, I am not the boss of you!

My brother shared this story: “Tonight after playing well with each other, our daughter came crying up the stairs and said that her sister had pushed her.  Her sister was right on her heels and said, "Let me tell you a couple of points.  One, she completely deserved it and point two, it was a complete accident!" 

Fighting is a part of life. My husband once told our six-year-old daughter to quit being ornery. She replied, “But Dad, being mad is part of being a kid!” Kids don’t even need a reason to fight. I’ve had kids fight on the way home from church about whether or not they learned about Jesus in primary.

You shouldn’t care who started it. You shouldn’t force apologies or punish the bully. Neither role – the bully or victim – is healthy. You don’t want to raise professional bullies or professional victims. When you punish one role, you exaggerate the other role. Sometimes kids provoke each other because they know they can get each other in trouble. Teach your children conflict resolution skills. Obviously there will be exceptions to this rule and hopefully you will be wise enough to know when to intervene. Obviously we don’t want anyone to get hurt, but we do want our children to resolve their own conflicts.

This journal entry pretty much sums up what I’ve learned over the years:

One of the huge things we’re going to try is letting our children solve their own altercations. I play referee all day and it exhausts me. That’s all I do all day long is referee the kids’ fights. One will come out screaming so I’ll send another to time-out and then things will escalate. From now on, I’m going to arm them all with ideas of how they can handle it and I’m going to stay out of it all together. Just that thought makes me so happy. That would give me like four hours extra every day that I won’t have to spend on solving children’s fights. I think they need to learn problem solving. As long as I intervene, they will never learn. Bingo!

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Use Humor

When all else fails, don’t be afraid to use a little humor. Lindsey, age 3, refused to get dressed. I said, “Oh good, Lindsey doesn’t need her clothes. I guess I can wear them.” I put her shirt on my head and her pants on my arms and started walking around the house. She laughed, stole the clothes and immediately put them on to “tease me.” Sometimes just diffusing the situation helps.

8. How to Discipline in Public?

Here are a few suggestions from seasoned parents:

Nadine Turner gave this suggestion to avoid tantrums, “Our girls knew we were ready to leave whatever we were doing to remove them from the situation. If we were in a store and they acted up, we would leave, sometimes leaving the things we were going to buy. If we were in a theater, they knew we would leave in the middle of a movie if necessary.”

David Cook said, “I have become increasingly concerned about the inappropriate ways adults deal with children when they misbehave in public. On three occasions recently my heart broke as I watched parents berate and/or humiliate their children in public.” He suggests that we should always act out of love and respect for our children and avoid acting out of anger. We should also remember that our initial reaction to our children’s behavior may either escalate or defuse the situation.

Richard Ricks says that the way we handle our children in public should not be significantly different than the way we handle them in the privacy of our homes. If the children are disciplined with love, then the setting for that discipline may not be so important. In fact, we might provide a good example to others if they see that we respond to a child’s challenge in a loving, yet firm way.

He goes on to say, “Discipline cannot always wait until we get home. Younger children may forget what they did wrong by the time they get home. If we can make our decisions as guided by the spirit, we will always make the right choice.”

Laura Kanar said, “In the heat of the situation, I try to remind myself of some of the reasons the children might be acting inappropriately, such as fatigue, boredom or hunger. Packing a snack, keeping the outing brief and a short diversion to do something they enjoy usually helps to keep them on their best behavior. If a child is acting out of no apparent reason I take the child to a private place, such as the restroom, where I can have their full attention and they mine. For the younger children a reward for good behavior is available, but a bribe is never offered in the thick of bad behavior.”

I have had my share of public embarrassments. It’s something we all fear as parents. I think the most important thing is remaining calm. I’ve seen parents yelling louder than their children at the grocery store and so have you. It only throws fuel on the fire. Children sometimes act out in public because they know that their parents are more likely to give in to avoid embarrassment, which makes it even more important that we be consistent, regardless of our location.

9. Realize that raising boys is different than raising girls.

My sister-in-law once volunteered in a kindergarten classroom. She was told to help the students with a coloring assignment.  Of course the girls carefully colored each part while one little boy started scribbling as fast as he could just to get it done.  She looked at the little boy and said, "Now take your time. Do your best work."  This 6 year-old boy looked back at her and replied, "Can't a man just color?" 

Boys are funny. When we were young, my dad owned a feedlot. One day for show and tell, my younger brother, Joel took a cow eyeball to school. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except that it was the weekend and he forgot to take it home. It sat in his desk for three days. When they returned to school, the teacher asked him to please take it out to the incinerator. But instead, he and his friends used it to play soccer at recess.

Several years ago my husband and I were having an interesting conversation after scout camp. He was telling me all the things the boys did to each other. I was minimally horrified and at the end he said, in all seriousness, “I’m glad they were all minor things.” I said, “Are you serious? Those are all considered minor things?” He said, “Yeah, that’s just how boys are.” My husband runs a pretty tight ship, so I’d hate to see what happened with the bad scoutmasters.

We got into a conversation about boys and how boys just hit things. They just feel the need to be physical and active. He said that when he was young he would walk past his sisters and slug them in the arm to let them know he loved them. I wrote in my journal:

I’ve realized that might be part of our son’s behavior lately. Sometimes when he walks past me he’ll punch me or hit me or pull on my clothes. Up until now I’ve just said “Stop it!” Now I realize that this is his way of showing affection. He doesn’t do it when he’s mad and he doesn’t do it hard. He’s just always knocking me on the shoulder. That was a good enlightenment. Now I don’t get angry. I just say, “Come give me a hug” instead.

I’m still not an expert on boys, but I do know they need a lot of space, a slightly longer leash, and physical activities that release their testosterone. I’ve also learned to rely on my husband heavily for advice while raising our sons.

As I mentioned at the beginning, disciplining children can be a daunting task. Our goal is to teach them to discipline themselves without destroying them in the process. If you make your children a priority and build a quality relationship of trust with them, you will find that the need for discipline is greatly diminished. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from President Thomas S. Monson. You may want to put it on your fridge. “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a child to be loved.”

Shannon Williams (2020)

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