My list

Dear Todd,
There are so many things I want to change about myself! I made a list of most pressing issues to pray and work on. Will you help me?

1. self discipline, responsibility, following schedules, getting dressed before 6pm and not having the boys ask where we are going when I tell them to get dressed, etc.
I need to have a reward for me and the kids when we follow our schedule. What should that be?

2. Creating a family/ home of peace and love and where the Spirit is always present and where the kids always feel safe. (I need to work on getting angry and frustrated. We talked about Mommy and Daddy time outs.) I really want to make this one a high priority.

3. Get off my lazy butt and do stuff for the kids! *See article below marked #3

4. Get off my lazy butt and play with the kids on THEIR time-- when they ask, not when it's convenient for me. To a child love is spelled T-I-M-E.

5. Say "yes" more often. *See article below marked #5

6. Be happy, optomistic, and stop complaining constantly

7. go on dates together, and with kids consistantly

8. Have set rules and consequences; be better at following through and being consistent; get kids to be obedient (they're good, but could be better)

9. Should we have another baby? When? Adopt or natural? Should we be done? Will Katie be ok without a sister? Will she be ok without a sibling her age? Can we handle the stress of another one? I want to have another so that it's longer until we are left without children in the house, and because I don't want to feel like I'm just getting this parenting thing down, and all my children are gone! What should we do? Please tell me! :)

10. I don't have a #10, but I can't leave it at #9! That's not even!
Oh yea, what curriculum should we use for school next year! It's so overwhelming!! (but fun and exciting!) Thanks for reading books and going to the conference with me so you can help me.

Article #3: Our “Refusing to Help Each Other” Problem (blog post http://teachingselfgovernment.com/?p=316)
Recently we have found another great use for the “bean counter” motivational system in our home. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a behavior which was working against our family mission and vision. And, the behavior was not isolated to one person. The problem behavior was spreading, like a disease, through the whole family. The feelings of frustration and contention were definitely on the rise in our home. The culprit was selfishness and the problem looked like this.
Youngest son says, “Dad, will you get me a drink of water?”
Dad says, “Porter, you know how to get your own drink. You can get it yourself.” Following this response, the son becomes frustrated and chooses to whine. The whinny behavior earns negative consequences and the son doesn’t get a drink because he is now busy learning how to accept a no answer.
Why did Dad give Porter the response he gave? There could have been many reasons. Maybe Dad was in the middle of something and didn’t want to be bothered with serving drinks. Maybe Dad was trying to encourage his young son to be more self-sufficient. Or maybe Dad just didn’t want to get up off the couch right then because he was feeling comfortable on the couch.
Don’t misunderstand me. Children should be given no answers sometimes. If a parent can’t tell their child no, then the child will rule the home and the parent child relationship will be strained. I don’t agree with being a parent who pampers their child’s every desire. However, constantly being too busy or giving a message that you don’t want to get off the couch to help a child with a need gives the child anxiety and a feeling similar to abandonment. Ignoring the needs of a child just creates more problems for the parent to handle in the long run.
What could Porter have been thinking? He could know things that Dad doesn’t understand. Porter could have been thinking that the cups in the dishwasher are dirty and so he would have to climb up on the counter to get a clean cup. This could be a concern to him because he has been told multiple times that he should not climb on the counter. Most importantly, he felt he had a need and might have felt that Dad didn’t think the need was very important. No parent would ever want their child to think this, but how often do we take the time to understand what they might be thinking?
Another example of our problem is as follows:
Oldest daughter is making lunch for her siblings. She looks at older brother and says, “Quin, please get me the jelly out of the fridge.”
Quin doesn’t even look at her while he walks past the fridge and says, “I’ve got to go feed the dog.” After this short statement he walks out of the house.
Why would Quin give a response like this? Maybe he forgot to feed the dog earlier that day, and just remembered; leaving him to feel it was really important right then. Or, maybe he just didn’t want to bother doing something for his sister right then.
What could Paije, the oldest daughter, have been thinking with this kind of response from her brother? She could feel unappreciated for making lunch. After all, she was making food for all the children, not just herself. She could feel angry at her brother for not taking her request seriously and choose to become angry herself. The list could go on.
These two experiences are examples of many similar experiences which started happening in our home over a couple of weeks. I can’t say I was exempt from being selfish either. In fact, I think that my husband and I were the ones who started the chain of selfish communications. For a few weeks we were really busy at our house. When the parents get really busy, they have a tendency to get really selfish with their time. When parents get selfish, it is only a matter of time before the children are also treating each other and the parents selfishly.
Our Solution
By the time our regular Sunday Family Meeting came around, I knew our “refusing to help each other” problem had to be my topic for family discussion. During the meeting I brought up the topic. We all saw how not serving other family members when they ask for help was in conflict with sections of our family mission statement which state, “…We spread love and happiness to others…………..We have patience and wisdom in our relationship…” We knew the Peck family had recently adopted some pretty selfish habits and our habits were affecting our family relationships.
We all contributed ideas of what we could do to motivate our family to want to serve each other when asked and to be less selfish. We discussed earning extra chores for not helping others when asked, because the requests were like instructions. Ultimately though, we decided that our family needed a positive consequence, or motivation, to really make a change of heart and get a feeling of working together on the project. All of the sudden the “bean counter” game came into my mind.
I suggested we get a quart jar and enough beans to fill the jar. The system goes like this. Every time a person asks someone in the family to do something and the person asked says “OK” and does what was requested the person giving service gets to put a bean in the jar. The whole family serves each other and adds beans until the jar is full. When the jar is full our family gets to go ice skating. We were all a little bit shocked at how often we ask each other to do things for us. We even started asking someone else to put a bean in the jar for us. This meant that the person putting the bean in the jar got to put two beans in because they were helping someone else get a bean in the jar. The jar is filling up quickly. All the members of the Peck family, parents included, have started stopping what they are doing to help each other all the time now. I expect we will be going ice skating really soon. We won’t use the jar any more for a while after our ice skating trip, because I have found games like this can’t usually go on for too long or they loose their motivational value, and the family forgets about them. But, our family has already had a great reminder about how selfishness can ruin the feeling of unity in the home. Thanks to the beans, we are much more conscious about the way we respond when someone asks for help. We have successfully played “bean counter” before to motivate secret service, and to motivate the four basic skills and school achievements, but this time we used it a little bit differently; and this time was just as motivating.

Don’t forget to use positive consequences as motivations too. Sometimes the positive focus is better than the negative. Maybe beans could help you improve a family behavior sometime too. I hope so.

*Article #5: How to say yes (blog post http://www.mommycoddle.com/2009/06/how-to-say-yes.html)
I walked in to the guest room a few weeks ago to find Emma on her knees, on the floor, hunched over something. She was obviously working quietly and intently, and secretively. I stepped closer and she looked up.
In front of her on the floor was a whole battery of off-limits items from my craft stash--sewing scissors, expensive yarn, scraps of fabric, rubber stamp pads, good heavy papers and permanent markers.
I felt my blood boil. "EMMA!!! WHAT are you doing??! These are my things!"
"I had this idea.", she said with a defeated sigh.
I was still upset. This had been happening a lot lately. The sneaking off while I was occupied elsewhere in the house. The getting in to things that normally require supervision. Craft stuff. Food from the pantry. Gardening tools. Things that stay inside the house being dragged outside.
It was making me crazy. Didn't my children understand any boundaries? Didn't they realize they couldn't get into anything and everything, whenever they pleased?
I questioned her further, "Why didn't you just ask?"
"Because I knew you'd say no. You always say no."
And there it was. I was confronted with the truth. Or at least what felt like the truth to her.
Now obviously, I don't say no all the time. But sometimes, I think my pile of "no's" far outweighs my pile of "yes". In fact it could easily bury the pile of yes. Sometimes the no's come from exhaustion--the not wanting to make another mess, the not wanting to break open all the paints or get out the sewing machine, the not wanting to fill another sink with dishes, the not wanting to hike to the stream and carry home dirty toddlers and ten pounds of streambed in a metal bucket.

And sometimes, I catch myself saying no because I think that's what I'm supposed to say. It's what parents do. That somehow I'm teaching them some life skill--to wait, to be patient, that you don't always get your way. And then I find myself thinking, "Now wait. Why did I say no to that?"
And I also realized in some odd way, my barrage of 'no's' was driving Emma to deception. She had ideas and plans that were burning inside of her. Things she had to try. Experiments she had to concoct. Recipes she had to make. She needed to bring these ideas in her head to fruition. And sometimes, the supplies she had at her disposal--some watercolor paints, construction paper, a pair of tiny right-handed scissors, just wouldn't cut it. And more often than not, when she brought her plans before the queen of the house, she was shot down before she even got started.
You've heard me say it a hundred times before, this job of parenting is a continual learning process. And once again, I've learned a lesson. I'm not saying all my no's have magically become a yes--I'm not planning to let Emma float Elizabeth down the stream on an inner tube anytime soon. However, my no doesn't come as quickly these days.

I don't want her to give up on me. To think she has me figured out. To decide that I'm always a no. I want to say yes sometimes. More times. I want to surprise her. I want to follow through on a few of those crazy ideas and see just where that idea takes us. I want her to tell me everything because she knows I'll be just as excited and curious and creative as she is.
I'll say no, when a no is what's really called for. But more than that, I want to be a yes.