A few weeks ago I posted about a parenting seminar that I attended at Soaring Wings.

Last week (or maybe it was the week before ) I attended the second class in the series. This one was titled “‘Honey, I Sold the Kids’ and other discipline strategies.

We started out talking about what exactly discipline means. From Wikipedia:

In its most general sense, discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. This sense also preserves the origin of the word, which is Latin disciplina “instruction”, from the root discere “to learn,” and from which discipulus “disciple, pupil” also derives.

To discipline thus means to instruct a person or animal to follow a particular code of conduct, or to adhere to a certain “order.” Consequently, “in the field of child development, discipline refers to methods of modeling character and of teaching self-control and acceptable behavior.

For me, the ultimate goal of discipline is to teach my kids to tap into their own compass of right and wrong and use it to make their own good decisions.

Lisa described discipline as guidelines. She spoke about 3 types of guidelines: No guidelines, off the path, and on the path. No guidelines means just what you think–wide open, no rules, do whatever you want. Off the path mentality is when you only talk about what not to do. It could also be when you make the “correct path” so small that it is hard get it right no matter what. The last one, on the path mentality, is what we all strive for. This is where we point out what behaviors we want to see. Then we catch them doing those behaviors and point them out.

We wrapped up the seminar by talking about the 2 Keys to Character Building Discipline. This tied everything together and was the most useful part of the seminar for me.

1) Crystal Clear Guidelines: Use forward focused questions to get them focused on the positive and what is coming.

This works wonders for me. If I can explain to my kids what is coming next ahead of time it saves me so much hassle and drama. When we get home from school I start doing this as I pull into the garage. We talk about how when we get out of the car we will take all of our things with us. When we get into the house we will take off our boots or shoes and put them away. Next we will hang up our coats and our backpacks. After all this is done we will all get to do something we enjoy, like have a snack, do some art projects, or just have some free play time. It is so much better to prepare them ahead of time, rather than yell at them later when all their stuff is either in the car or all over the laundry room floor.

2) Follow Through: this is the key to everything for me. You need to mean what you say, and then actually do it, every time. This sounds so easy, but in practice it can be so hard.

So far I have learned some things at both seminars that have been helpful. More than anything, it just helps to be reminded of some of these things. I know most of them, it is just the putting them into practice that needs more work!

Emma had her second parent-teacher conference this week.

I was a little worried about what her teacher might say this time. Not academically, I feel like she is right where she should be in that regard. I was more worried about how she might be acting in class. She tens to be a bit silly and chatty. She frequently tells me about “funny” things that her and her friends do in class. I expected to hear that she has been disruptive in class.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Her teacher had a lot of good things to say. Academically she is doing fantastic. They look at something called the DIEBELS Assessmant to determine her reading progress. By the end of First Grade they like students to be at level J (A being the beginning and on down to J). Emma is at a level K right now, with almost half of the year left.

Her letter formation and handwriting is great. Her only issue is that she sometimes slips a capital letter into the middle of a lowercase word. Otherwise she is doing really well in that department.

Ms. Hensler described Emma as in awe of everything. Her face just lit up when she spoke about Emma. She loves her personality and the way she is so excited to learn about things. She said that when she gets off task, it is never in a disruptive way. It is more that Emma gets distracted and kind of goes off in her own little world. Sometimes she has trouble completing work on time because it takes her so long to get going.

Again this time, Ms. Hensler expressed how happy she is to have Emma in her classroom. She said that she is always disappointed and misses her when she isn’t in class.

I was really proud of Emma. She has a few things that she needs to work on, but she is doing great. It felt really good to hear her teacher just gush about her. Emma is lucky to have such a great First Grade teacher.

I think Nora has officially entered the terrible twos.

I know she is my third child, and I should be expecting this. I have been through this with 2 other kids, right? Funny thing is I must have amnesia or something because I swear I just don’t remember it being quite like this. I remember Ian being crazy and active, but I don’t remember him doing things specifically to push my buttons. I am sure that both he and Emma both acted like that, but I just don’t remember right now.

I also don’t remember how to deal with it. I watch her do things and I just feel powerless and flabbergasted sometimes. This morning was particularly difficult. She woke up about 5:30am and started calling for someone to come get her. Her yelling woke Emma up, so Emma went and got her out of bed. The first thing Nora did was come into our room and ask for “yummies”. When we grunted at her and rolled over an went back to sleep she broke down in tears. The same thing happened over and over for about an hour, until I finally got up and made her breakfast. She ate a few bites and then proceeded to throw her entire bowl of cereal onto the floor, milk and all.

Next she grabbed Emma’s box of crayons, looked straight at me, and threw the whole box onto the floor. Emma’s new crayons went all over and many of them broke. I was so angry at her. I asked her to pick them all up. She looked at me and said “No mommy, I not pick up the crayons”. UGH! I picked her up and plopped her down next to them and told her not to get up until they were all picked up. While she was picking them up she kept saying “Mommy, you are stupid” and “Mommy, I hate you.” After some prodding she did finally pick them up, but I was so angry at her.

Today was her first official day at school and I was so glad to drop her off. I felt bad after I left for feeling that way, but she just pushed my buttons this morning. I feel bad for losing my temper with her and yelling, but sometimes I just can’t help it. I know that this is a phase, but for now I just need to figure out how to deal with her.

I had a talk with my good friend Vicky today. I really value her parenting advice. She gave me some good tips. She reminded me how I dealt with Emma when she had some of these defiance issues when she turned 6. I realized that she was just rebelling because she needed more independence. I think that Nora is trying to tell me the same thing. She isn’t a baby anymore. She has been ready to move out of her high chair for a while. I think now is the time to move her. She is a great sleeper, so she is probably ready to start getting up when she is ready. It is probably time for me to move her to a bed, or at least take the side off her crib so that she can get in and out of her bed. I think that these things will help with some of her issues, now I just need to gear up to make some of the changes.

I guess Ian is officially potty trained at night!

A few weeks before we went to Maui, I started putting the bed wetting alarm on Ian. It went off every night for a few nights. Still, he seemed to be making progress. Unfortunately, after wearing it a few nights, we lost it somewhere in our house. I finally found it a week or so later in the back of my nightstand. I was glad to have found it, but then I got busy with prepping for our trip. We weren’t very consistent and we stopped using it.

While we were in Maui Ian kept wearing his pull ups at night, but he kept waking up dry. Every morning he would wake up and run in and show me that his pull up was still dry. I was happy for him, and he was really proud of himself.

When we got home I decided to just ditch the pull ups all together. I put a waterproof pad on his bed and talked to him about staying dry. I am happy to report that he has been dry every night since we got home on January 5th. I’d say he is officially night trained!

Now if I could just get Nora potty trained! She has lost interest in using the potty, but I am going to try to encourage her again soon. I can’t wait to be finished with diapers!

Ian turns five today.

After spending Monday at the hospital with Mike and Maren, I have been thinking a lot about all of my births. In some ways it just feels like yesterday that I became a parent for the first time. I remember all of my births very vividly. I know it might sound crazy, but I really did enjoy all of them. Of course, there were parts that I didn’t enjoy, but overall I had 3 really great natural childbirths.

Since today is Ian’s birth day, I went back and read his birth story. You can read it here if you are interested. I wish I had posted more pictures. I was blogging then, but I just didn’t include very many photos with my posts. Maybe I’ll have to go back and add some soon.

Ian’s birth was definitely the most exciting of all of my births. I can still remember the last car ride to Salt Lake like it was yesterday. I still think back and wonder why I wasn’t more persuasive with my midwife Marcia. I knew that I shouldn’t be sent home. I know that I should have stood my ground and told her I wanted to stay. But, I guess that is why they say hindsight is 20/20. Still, that was without a doubt the worst trip to Salt Lake we have ever taken. It was dark and snowing. And I was using every ounce of energy I had to hold him in. I was so relieved when we finally got there. I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. One push and his head was out.

But once he was in my arms, all of that was forgotten. I remember just laying there staring at him. I felt like he and I were the only ones in the room. I held his hand and rubbed his back. Before long he wanted to nurse…..and nurse and nurse and nurse.

Since then he has grown so fast. I can’t believe that he turns five today. He continues to be full of energy. His intensity is challenging at times, for me and his teachers. But he is such a charmer. He looks at you with the cutest little smile, and he could almost get away with anything. He is such a smart little guy. He started talking amazingly well at two, and his vocabulary has continued to grow.

In April he started reading. I was so surprised! He had been watching Emma and he wanted to try too. I got him some simple books and he just sat down and started reading. We have been working on his writing skills. It is just hard to get him to sit still long enough to focus on it. He can write his name and most of his letters, he just needs more practice. Right now he loves anything to do with Star Wars and Transformers. I think that he has every Transformer there is! He knows how to transform all of them. Some of them are so complicated that I can’t even do them. Many times he has to show me how to do them.

We are having a family party tonight at Chuck E Cheese, and he will have a party for some of his friends on Saturday. Today we had his birthday celebration at school. You can read a great post about the Montessori birthday celebration on my friend Vicky’s blog. It was really sweet, and he was over the moon about the whole thing. He told everyone he saw that today was his birthday.

Happy birthday my big Five year old. You bring a lot of joy to all of our lives!

Look at that face. How could anyone get angry at that little charmer? This is one of Ian’s biggest challenges.

Last week he had a little issue at school. I happened to be there and saw Kim come around the corner with him. She saw me and quickly turned around and headed down the hall so she could deal with him without involving me. I thought that he was crying, and I asked her about it at pickup. Unfortunately I think I made the whole situation bigger than it had to be by talking about it in front of Ian. Kim said that it wasn’t a big deal, but Ian heard us talking about it, and it became a bigger deal in his mind.

The next day, for the first time, he didn’t want to go to school. When I got to drop off he wouldn’t get out of the car. I parked and walked him in. He was complaining and starting to cry. I figured out that he was upset about what had happened with Kim, and probably embarressed about the whole thing. I ended up leaving him there crying and screaming, while the teachers held him so he couldn’t escape out the front door. They did a great job with him, and by the end of the day he was back to himself. Kim said they had made up, and he had a good day at school. But, she did ask me to come in and have a meeting with her and Ian.

Today I talked to her about it, and we set up the meeting. I couldn’t help but feel sad about the whole thing. I felt like here we go again, more problems at school. I left the school and just felt so frustrated and short with the kids.

Tonight they had back to school night at SWMS. I wasn’t going to go because Scott is out of town. At the last minute I decided to get Garrett to babysit, and I went.

Their presentation of math tonight was so great and made so much sense. I was also able to talk to some of the teachers about Ian. I heard so many great things about him. I saw how much his teachers like him and how much they care about him. Kim talked to me about the meeting and said she just wants to show Ian that we are all on the same page. She feels that he has gotten to know her better and now he feels more comfortable pushing her. She totally has him figured out!

It made me feel so good to see that she understands him and that the meeting isn’t to tell me about all of Ian’s “bad” behaviors, but rather to show him that we are a united front and that I will stand behind what Kim says. I am so happy that I went. It just reaffirmed for me why I send my kids to a Montessori school.

Soaring Wings is putting on a 6 week parenting seminar. At the last minute, I decided to sign up. Today I went to the first session.

It is called “7 Keys to Positive Parenting”. It is based on a book called The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children. by Steven Vannoy. The instructor was trained by the author of the book. She took his presentation and added some things to make it her own.

Today’s lesson was called “The Four Bad Words–They aren’t what you Think!” The four lessons were:

Ask for the behavior you are looking for. The brain visualizes the don’t. If you tell your child “Don’t spill your milk” all your child hears and pictures in his mind is spilling the milk. Instead say what we mean and want.

Avoid using this in the negative sense as a generalization. For example “You are always so……” It could be positive or negative.

The exact same as always. Can be positive or negative, but it is a generalization.

The leader gave an example of a parent talking to her 3 year old and telling the child that his behavior was causing her angst. How the heck is a 3 year old supposed to know what angst means, let alone know how to correct his behavior?

I also got some suggestions about one of my biggest parenting issues–getting out of the house in the morning without screaming at my children. Ian in particular really tries my patience. I ask him about 10,000 times to get dressed. Usually I end up yelling at him because we are going to be late for school. The leader asked me to focus on the things that are absolutely necessary in the mornings.

Usually we eat breakfast first, then get dressed, then brush teeth and comb hair. My kids are usually starving in the mornings and they can’t wait to eat. She suggested that we switch our routine around and make getting dressed the first task. Once they are dressed they can do something that they really want to do–eat breakfast. Like she said, nobody ever died from missing a few breakfasts.

I had a talk with both Emma and Ian about it. I explained to them that I get annoyed and angry when I have to ask them over and over to get dressed and ready for school. I told them that I get so frustrated that sometimes I yell, which I don’t want to do. I told them I came up with a new idea to help out. They were all over the idea. The last thing Emma said when I tucked her in tonight was that she would get dressed first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will help.

I am glad that I attended the class. I already knew the theory about “don’t” but I needed a reminder. I really tried to focus on it tonight with the kids, and I found myself having to rephrase my thoughts about a million times. I think I needed the reminder even more than I originally thought One of the best things about learning more about parenting, whether it is from reading a book or attending classes, is that is just helps me to refocus. It forces me to look at the things I am doing and be mindful of the things I can do better. This class definitely did that for me.

I am looking forward to the other 5 classes in the series.

Many people who know me in real life know that I am somewhat of a car seat Nazi.

I am extremely fussy about car seat usage and installations. I like to frequent car seat message boards and learn about new car seat models. I never let my kids ride in any car without car seats. I take tons of time installing my car seats. I want them to be rock solid when they are installed–like they are supposed to be. Why bother using car seats if you aren’t going to install them so that they protect the kids in case of an accident?

I also keep my kids in harnessed car seat much longer than most people. While lots of people I know are just itching to have their kids get to 30 pounds so they can move them to a booster, I still have my almost 7 year old in a harnessed car seat. Instead of buying a booster, when Emma outgrew her Britax Marathon (in height, not weight) I bought her a new seat that would accommodate her height.

Did you know that car seats expire? I never knew they did until I started frequenting car seat message boards. Most car seats have expiration dates on the seat somewhere. If they don’t you can check with the manufacturer. If all else fails, most car seats expire 6 years from the date of manufacture. I know it might seem like a waste to throw away a car seat that looks fine, but if you watch this video, you will never use an expired car seat again.

I also keep my kids rear facing much longer than most people. Emma was rear facing forever, mostly because she was so skinny and she was almost 2 year old before she got to the 20 pound minimum to face forward. With Ian, I had learned more, and just knew that it was safer. So even though he was 20 pounds when he turned one year, I still kept him rear facing.

Nora has been rear facing until today. I kept her rear facing more than a year than most people. Here is a great article about how much safer it is to be rear facing. I really planned on keeping her rear facing until she reached the rear facing limit of her Britax Marathon, which is 35 pounds, but I decided to turn her around today. The weather is what finally got me to do it.

Since we got back from Maui it has been snowing constantly. Nora has been wearing boots and walking in the snow. Every time she gets in the car her boots are full of mud and snow which melts all over her Marathon and the actual seat of the Sienna. I think it will be better to have the snow melting onto the floor, instead of all over her. Another benefit is that she will be able to watch the movie screen now too.

I know that I kept her rear facing MUCH longer than most people. But I still have some guilt about turning her around. I guess I just need to get over it. I have done everything I can to ensure that my kids are safe while driving.

Hopefully someone learned something about car seats by reading this post. I think I’ll get off my soap box now

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Here are my last Weekly Winner photos from Maui. We head back home tonight

Please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom to view all the Weekly Winners participants.

I have had kind of a hard day today.

It started last night at dinner. We went to our favorite casual pizza place. Luckily it is a very casual place because the kids were TERRIBLE. All three of them had their moments of awfulness. Nora started out by throwing her plate off the table. Then she proceeded to do it 2 more times. Have I mentioned what a challenge she has been the last few weeks? Then Emma started being sassy and bratty. She kept making this annoying noise over and over. I asked her to stop, she looked me squarely in the eyes and kept doing it. She got a time out for that. I was so frustrated by the time dinner was over.

To add to the fray, the pizza was terrible. I had been looking forward to going to Vinny’s all week. When we got there I noticed the sign was different and they had a new name. Everything else in the restaurant looked exactly the same, so we hoped the food would be too. Unfortunately the pizza is different. The crust was different and there was too much cheese. I don’t think we will be eating there again.

Then this morning Vicky, the office manager, stopped my mom and told her that she had gotten another complaint about the kids being too loud. Last week the people upstairs complained about slamming doors. This time someone complained about Nora crying early in the morning. It just sent me over the edge. I was so frustrated with the kids at dinner, and the last thing I needed today were complaints about noise.

It is so hard in these condos in Maui. We are all so close together, and everyone has their windows open. My kids wake up early, there really isn’t anything I can do about that. And Nora is extremely loud. Unfortunately she is also two, so there isn’t much I can do about it. I can’t do much to prevent her from crying, and when she cries I can do my best to get her to stop, but it isn’t like I have a magic wand.

Anyway, on a long trip like this, there are bound to be some problems. I did get to go shopping for a while with my mom, while Scott watched the kids. I found 2 new bathing suits, so that cheered me up. Tomorrow is bound to be a better day–we are off to Oahu to visit Pearl Harbor and I have a sitter all day!