Morning
While my son was in his crib, he had a small yellow bear which squeaked when he played with it. Hence often the 1st noise we heard from his room was squeaky bear.
We would immediately get him out of his crib. He never learned to climb out of his crib because he didn’t need too. A change of diapers and then some Mom and Dad time in bed before showers and breakfast.
Shopping
We took our son shopping often. While I can not say he was always perfect, I don’t remember a big embarrassing scene. Our rules involved that if he was good and asked for one thing we would consider buying it. Most times we did.
If he continually asked for things throughout the store, he got nothing. I often included a new book to the shopping cart to increase our library.
Discipline
On the occasions that discipline was needed we used timeouts. A time out consisted of sitting in a green lazy boy recliner for the number of minutes he was old.
Near the end of the timeout, one of us would go over to him and ask why he was disciplined. We would discuss if this was something he would do in the future or could it be avoided. Time outs ended with a hug.
When he had friends over if he and they were getting rambunctious we would quietly suggest it was time for the green chair. My son would get the message and often activity would calm down. His friends often didn’t even notice that my son had been threatened.
Around Meals
This may seem difficult, but at least one meal a day should be spent as a family. I prefer the evening meal.
Conversation is a must and should include everyone. I liked to use two questions as a starter:
- What was the best thing that happened today?
- What did you do today that you would want to do differently
A child gets a chance to look at life as a positive sense. It also helps develop that making mistakes is okay so long as as you learn from errors.
We had a rule. Before he could say he didn’t like something he had to try it. He was in Junior High School before he actual tried something and said he did not like it. By then he had learned the right to not like something, so we actually took it of the menu. My son now in his 30’s enjoys many different types of foods.
Evening
After supper the family including any children clean up together. Many hands make for light work and the shared experience help develop discipline.
This is followed with an active game, such as a sport, soccer with a balloon ball from the supermarket for the very young. We used the cardboard brick blocks to build towers. With teamwork holding the child up to put the last block in place, The preschool child gets to knock it down in the end.
A half hour of TV is used to change gears and slow both the thought process and the body.
Bedtime
Reading to a child is a must almost as soon as the child gets home from the hospital. I had a sales person over the phone tell me that I was depriving my child’s education because I did not buy a series of books for him. While he did not get the sale, I provided plenty of books for my son to read.
We also read 2 books. One I would chose and my son would chose the other. Each day I would chose a different book. My son normally selected a book from the previous evening, but it never went more than 2 days before he would select my previous nights selection. I never read the same book all week long.
Since the activities while they varied slightly from evening to evening my son now was prepared ready to go to sleep. He seldom had trouble going to sleep.
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