On several occasions we've allowed our kids to determine their own consequences or restrictions. This seems to work rather well. We've discovered they are most often harder on them themselves than we would be.
Nate is a little addicted to a computer game called Third Grade Adventures. It's the first thing he does in the morning and usually the last thing with some play time in between. (One morning he even got up before my 6 am alarm!) We talked about how much time he was spending on the computer and I asked him to come up with an amount of time for him to play. Kiersten piped up, "How about a half hour?" I was kind of thinking the same thing. He turned to her and said, "NO!," and turning back to me, "How about 10 minutes?" I just smiled and didn't argue.
So my parental advice is let them be part of the solution. It seems to always work better when it's their idea.
1 comment:
I tell you what...I am learning more and more about being a good parent from your techniques than I ever would reading from some parental advice book. Its good that you write these things down because one day I think your kids will look back and just laugh. And now you have proof in writing.
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