Consequences

Our son Z is nine years old but really, emotionally, he is four. Confusing I know, but it is reality of raising a child who has been emotionally stunted by his past. Z can throw a tantrum unlike any child I have ever seen. In fact, I hope I never see another child throw a "Z Tantrum". Nothing about his behavior would indicate that he has graced the earth with his presence for a solid nine years. Z has thrown these fits since the beginning. Unlike T, Z never had a honeymoon period. His behaviors cropped up on his very first overnight visit. I have seen him throw tantrum after tantrum but nothing quite like his fit last weekend. Our family decided we would head… [more]

I wrote in a recent post about how I’d been looking over old e-mails to our children’s social worker, just as we were beginning to explore adoption. One of those early e-mails warned that the kids were sometimes too cute for their own good, in that people were tempted to overlook a great deal that they ought not to, in light of the severe behavioral issues they had at the time. It’s still been a struggle to figure out exactly what methods work best with each little personality. My daughter tends to cycle: she’ll be fine for a couple of months, then she’s back to lying…or stealing…or wetting/soiling herself. She will resist every bit of schooling for home school. And will look at you the most… [more]

There has been discussion over on the Christian Adoption Blog about how much involvement a child should have in making restitution. The debate, I think, stems from whether or not you feel the child has control over the issue or not. If a child vomits, as was the scenario one reader chose, generally speaking one would assume that is involuntary and thus a parent would operate under their usual modis operandus. If it is deliberate, to my way of thinking, the child must be involved in making restitution since others were inconvenienced to each the child consideration for others. Yes, I am the mom, and yes, I have many jobs that I do automatically, however, in my own opinion, I think distancing a child from feeling… [more]

I am big fan of the book Parenting With Love and Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Fay. The focus of the book is on teaching children responsibility, and the authors point out that human beings learn best through making mistakes. When we have the freedom to make the wrong choice, we learn from the logical consequences of our actions and then make a better choice the next time.

One example they provide is when your child does not want to wear a jacket in cold weather. They suggest that you allow your child to make this choice for himself and say nothing. The child will learn on his own that it is a good idea to wear a jacket the next time it is cold… [more]

Sometimes, as in the picture here, rules make no sense at all! Hopefully, with our kids, we're able to come up with rules that have logical consequences that help kids make sense of all these rules! Parenting books line the shelves of every major bookstore and library in the country. How can we find the right parenting books that work for us and our children? I first parented a son, an easy-going biologically-born-to-me son. I checked out parenting books, every idea worked on my easy little child. I assumed I had read and learned well. Because this child was so easy, we should have another. Right? The second child was, is, probably always will be… [more]

In the first two blogs, I talked about some of my childrens' cussing behaviors and some fun ideas we've tried for consequences.

• Ideas for Parenting a Child Who Likes to Swear
• Cussing on Paper

The fun quote above is from my 13yr old daughter - describing her 14yr old sister to a friend. The rest of this blog is directly from this adorable 14year old...these are her ideas about consequences for poor behavior. (For background, this cutie was adopted by us almost 1yr ago. She came to our family because of her severe behaviors in her first adoptive family. She has tested. She's not done testing yet. But she sure is doing a lot better than she was!! The girl is no stranger to the "consequence"!) I could talk about Grounding? Grounding sucks. You shouldn’t ground anyone. Just kidding! Certain things need to be grounded for. You shouldn’t go easy on your dang… [more]