Love this comparison picture.
This morning Carson told me that it's all mine and jesus fault that he gets mean and mad. Mine because I made him mad by not letting him have excess food because he wastes it and Jesus fault because he made him this way. He also keeps telling us that Jesus made him with ADHD and other stuff mixed with it.
This afternoon, I hope he learned a very valuable lesson. He locked the downstairs door and then proceeded to tell his sisters that he didn't love them and so when I went to put him in time out, he told me that I am the meanest mom he has ever had and that he wishes I would just leave and that he doesn't want to go to a new home, he just wants to live with is dad. He tells me this on an almost daily basis, so today, I told the girls what I was going to do because I didn't want them to freak out with him, but I walked out the door without saying a word to Carson. I told Quynise to text me when he noticed I was gone. She did, and he started bawling. He thought I was never coming back.
I did come back and boy was he really sorry that he said what he said to me. He also tends to use the phrase, "I was just kidding" after saying hurtful mean things to everyone when he knows he is in trouble and I wanted him to know that you can't say mean things and then say just kidding. So I explained that just like a cut on your skin leaves a scar so does hurtful words leave a scar on your heart. They hurt just as bad as a cut does.
Normally, I would have never done something so drastic because these kids have been through enough trauma that I don't want to cause more trauma, but I am at a loss and not sure what else to do to get it through his head that words can hurt people too. He is in extensive therapy once a week and occupational therapy every other week.
Anyway, I think it made him think about things a little more. I was only gone for 15 minutes and I was just a block away sitting in a parking lot.
I found this amazing app that you can set a time limit that your kids are allowed on their phone. It also tracks their Web history app history search history. We have given Quynsie 3 hours a day that she can be on Netflix YouTube and other apps. We have also put a time frame where she is not allowed on them as well. For example during the school year she will not be able to even access the Internet or apps between the hours of 8:30-3:30. She can still call and text as much as she wants.
We feel that we are still being pretty generous. We figure movies on Netflix are around an hour and twenty minutes and then she loves to take pictures and edit them, but we don't want her doing it 12 hours a day like she did yesterday and more often than we would like so I found an app to limit it. I think it will work better than taking her phone away altogether. I can adjust time limits and what she is allowed right from my own phone. I can see pretty much everything she does on her phone right from my own phone.
AWESOME!!!!
Carson says that he is going to be the best daddy when he grows up.
~~~~~~~~~~
We had a conversation with our kids tonight about how life is not always about fun and games. You have to work hard for the things you want in life. We can still have fun as a family while doing hard work. It is up to them on if they want to have fun with it or if they want to have a bad attitude.
I found this awesome article that fits what I have been trying to tell them for the past couple of months and so I read it to them.
Brooke Romney: Why we are taking the fun out of life
My children have a problem. They think the purpose of life is to have fun. It was especially evident when their prayers included "Help us to have a fun day tomorrow and a fun day the day after that." That little phrase hit me hard. Is our family so out of touch with others' needs and so removed from thanking the Lord that the only place we need God to intervene is to guarantee our fun? Where had we gone wrong?
After some serious self-reflection, I realized that we've been creating these fun-fed children. As they leave our car, we smile, wave and shout, "Have fun!" After they return home from somewhere (school, practice, play date, church), the question is usually "Did you have fun?" and if they didn't, there is often a decent amount of concern about what might be wrong and how we can remedy this un-fun problem.
Not only that, but we live in a culture full of cheap thrills and expensive entertainment that everyone feels like he or she must be a part of. You don't take an annual trip to Disneyland? Your poor kids! You aren't going to spend the day at a trampoline park? Bummer! Your kids don't have iPhones or iTouches yet? So sad! You aren't going away for the three-day weekend? What will you do at home?
Fun is a drug. Take a little and you want more. Take enough and it no longer satisfies. You need bigger, better, more expensive activities to fill you up. The simple moments are no longer satisfactory, and the big events don't seem all that big anymore. Fun is a junk food diet that leaves you giddy for a moment, then hollow and wanting more.
Kids learn it from somewhere: media, friends and, yes, parents too. Our culture worships leisure, entertainment and fun. As parents, we have forgotten how to have a good time with our kids without paying someone to fabricate it for us. We have forgotten that the most fulfilling and closest relationships are not the ones based on constant fun together but ones where we have worked, laughed, loved and struggled together. I don't want a cotton candy relationship with my kids. I want something substantial and real.
As I read biographies and listen to interviews about successful people who have changed the world, there seems to be a common thread in what they learned as a children and adolescents: hard work. It doesn't matter which country they come from, their socioeconomic status, their gender, their beauty or lack of it. They succeed by working hard at something, for something or to merely survive, and these lessons almost always started at home.
So this year we are turning over a new leaf in our home. We are still huge advocates of enjoying life, seeing the positive and taking it all in. We want to travel with our kids and show them the wonders of nature and different cultures. We love to play sports, take walks, visit the theater, attend concerts, hike, play games, swim, watch movies and just be together.
But this year we will work hard together too. We will create memories and strengthen relationships as we accomplish difficult things together. We will hold our boys accountable for their efforts in our family, in school, in sports, in music, in hobbies and in their church duties. We will no longer ask our kids if they had fun because, frankly, we don't care. They can choose to make every experience fun if they want to. It's up to them and absolutely possible. But we will no longer worry about creating fun for them or shielding them from hardships, unpleasantness or, heaven forbid, boredom. We want them to reap more than fun from this existence. We want them to be fulfilled. We want them to reach their potential. We want them to be excellent.
We will change our focus and ask one of these questions:
After some serious self-reflection, I realized that we've been creating these fun-fed children. As they leave our car, we smile, wave and shout, "Have fun!" After they return home from somewhere (school, practice, play date, church), the question is usually "Did you have fun?" and if they didn't, there is often a decent amount of concern about what might be wrong and how we can remedy this un-fun problem.
Not only that, but we live in a culture full of cheap thrills and expensive entertainment that everyone feels like he or she must be a part of. You don't take an annual trip to Disneyland? Your poor kids! You aren't going to spend the day at a trampoline park? Bummer! Your kids don't have iPhones or iTouches yet? So sad! You aren't going away for the three-day weekend? What will you do at home?
Fun is a drug. Take a little and you want more. Take enough and it no longer satisfies. You need bigger, better, more expensive activities to fill you up. The simple moments are no longer satisfactory, and the big events don't seem all that big anymore. Fun is a junk food diet that leaves you giddy for a moment, then hollow and wanting more.
Kids learn it from somewhere: media, friends and, yes, parents too. Our culture worships leisure, entertainment and fun. As parents, we have forgotten how to have a good time with our kids without paying someone to fabricate it for us. We have forgotten that the most fulfilling and closest relationships are not the ones based on constant fun together but ones where we have worked, laughed, loved and struggled together. I don't want a cotton candy relationship with my kids. I want something substantial and real.
As I read biographies and listen to interviews about successful people who have changed the world, there seems to be a common thread in what they learned as a children and adolescents: hard work. It doesn't matter which country they come from, their socioeconomic status, their gender, their beauty or lack of it. They succeed by working hard at something, for something or to merely survive, and these lessons almost always started at home.
So this year we are turning over a new leaf in our home. We are still huge advocates of enjoying life, seeing the positive and taking it all in. We want to travel with our kids and show them the wonders of nature and different cultures. We love to play sports, take walks, visit the theater, attend concerts, hike, play games, swim, watch movies and just be together.
But this year we will work hard together too. We will create memories and strengthen relationships as we accomplish difficult things together. We will hold our boys accountable for their efforts in our family, in school, in sports, in music, in hobbies and in their church duties. We will no longer ask our kids if they had fun because, frankly, we don't care. They can choose to make every experience fun if they want to. It's up to them and absolutely possible. But we will no longer worry about creating fun for them or shielding them from hardships, unpleasantness or, heaven forbid, boredom. We want them to reap more than fun from this existence. We want them to be fulfilled. We want them to reach their potential. We want them to be excellent.
We will change our focus and ask one of these questions:
- "Did you learn something?"
- "Did you feel productive?"
- "Did you work hard?"
- "Did you try your best?"
- "Were you a good friend?"
- "Did you try something new?"
- "Did you push yourself?"
- "Did you make someone's day better?"
- "Did you add value?"
- "Did you create something?"
- "Did you grow?"
- "Did you discover something?"
- "Did you change the world today, even in a small way?"
This post by Brooke Romney originally appeared on Mom Explores Michigan. It has been published here with the author's permission. Brooke Romney is a freelance writer and author of the blog Mom Explores Michigan.
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