Love and Logic (was Questions from a Newbie!)
[email protected]
In a message dated 8/25/2000 12:43:19 PM Central Daylight Time,
Jaam1224@... writes:
to choose?
I think especially in the beginning, when we're trying this new way of
thinking and dealing with our kids, that people expect instant results.
Actually, at least with Love and Logic, nothing is instant. We consider
childhood a training ground for turning out responsible adults. That takes
some time. And practice. And fine tuning to see what works with your
children.
I can honestly say that after employing Love and Logic for the last two years
with our kids, we've had some really good results. But, it was a learning
process for all of us. As we were experimenting with all this, if we gave
our 3 year old two choices, and if she refused to accept those two choices,
we learned to make the choice for her. On certain occasions she has
surprised us with a third choice that is perfectly acceptable to us. Like:
Do you want to sit quietly, or do you want to go to your room for a while?
She said, I'd rather go sit in the kitchen. Fine -- she has made a choice,
retained some control and dignity, and we have what we want. She's stopped
jumping on the couch. If she says, NO, I won't stop jumping, she is still
young enough that I can pick her up and carry her away from jumping on the
couch, and I tell her in a calm voice that continuing to jump was not a
choice, and that since she wouldn't make a choice, I had to do it for her.
Then I would say, Do you want to walk to your room, or should I carry you?
She learned in short order that continuing the behavior was not an acceptable
choice.
We employ a broken record approach, too. As calmly as we can, we repeat,
That is not a choice. Your choices are. . . They say, NO, I want to do
this. Again, that is not a choice. Your choices are . . . Okay, since you
won't make a choice, I have to do it for you. I choose. . .
For Love and Logic to work, you have to be willing to allow your children to
live with the consequences of their actions (just like we do!). Now, if my
son, who is now 8, refused to stop or accept one of those choices, he's a
little more difficult to physically control. You may not want to risk the
natural consequences of allowing your child to fall off the couch, so
sometimes we have to "manufacture" consequences. Then, we go for the
thinking words: People who jump on couches often fall and hurt themselves.
People who jump on couches don't get dessert (or TV, or Nintendo, or whatever
the treat of the moment is). We didn't tell him not to jump on the couch,
and his choices are implicit: if he chooses to jump on the couch he could
get hurt and he will lose dessert. For particularly obstinate situations,
we'd up the ante until we got the behavior we needed, but we would rarely
tell him to outright stop. That we save for truly dangerous situations (like
tonight when he started to walk out into a line of traffic in a parking lot
while he was looking at his new Pokemon cards). We were so surprised when,
in pretty short order, he started responding. He realized that he had
choices to make and that we were willing to make those for him and to stand
by the consequences.
Sometimes, kids can really play us like a violin. If they suspect that we'll
give in, they'll keep at us until we do. In Love and Logic, we give many
choices because we want our children to learn to make responsible choices as
teens and adults. We also let them live with the consequences because those
consequences are a much better teacher than any words or orders I give them.
It takes practice, and I tell my workshop participants from the get go that
some methods and devices and words and choices work better than others on
different children. It takes consistency and practice. And it takes time to
learn to craft appropriate choices and thinking words and consequences.
That's why we do a 4 or 6 week workshop -- to give people lots of time to
experiment and practice in class, to bring their problem situations to the
class for comment and suggestions, to share successes. I don't mean to make
this sound like a commercial for Love and Logic, but if anyone is interested
enough to participate in a workshop, you might want to log onto
www.loveandlogic.com for more information. There's a lot of interesting
stuff there. They can also give names of people in your area who give
workshops.
Carron
Carron
Jaam1224@... writes:
> This isone
> the conversation that I get..."I WANT to do this........." "That is not
> of the choices. Here are the choices........" but "I want to doDo you make the choice for them? What are the consequences of their refusal
> this.............." over and over again....
>
> Julie
to choose?
I think especially in the beginning, when we're trying this new way of
thinking and dealing with our kids, that people expect instant results.
Actually, at least with Love and Logic, nothing is instant. We consider
childhood a training ground for turning out responsible adults. That takes
some time. And practice. And fine tuning to see what works with your
children.
I can honestly say that after employing Love and Logic for the last two years
with our kids, we've had some really good results. But, it was a learning
process for all of us. As we were experimenting with all this, if we gave
our 3 year old two choices, and if she refused to accept those two choices,
we learned to make the choice for her. On certain occasions she has
surprised us with a third choice that is perfectly acceptable to us. Like:
Do you want to sit quietly, or do you want to go to your room for a while?
She said, I'd rather go sit in the kitchen. Fine -- she has made a choice,
retained some control and dignity, and we have what we want. She's stopped
jumping on the couch. If she says, NO, I won't stop jumping, she is still
young enough that I can pick her up and carry her away from jumping on the
couch, and I tell her in a calm voice that continuing to jump was not a
choice, and that since she wouldn't make a choice, I had to do it for her.
Then I would say, Do you want to walk to your room, or should I carry you?
She learned in short order that continuing the behavior was not an acceptable
choice.
We employ a broken record approach, too. As calmly as we can, we repeat,
That is not a choice. Your choices are. . . They say, NO, I want to do
this. Again, that is not a choice. Your choices are . . . Okay, since you
won't make a choice, I have to do it for you. I choose. . .
For Love and Logic to work, you have to be willing to allow your children to
live with the consequences of their actions (just like we do!). Now, if my
son, who is now 8, refused to stop or accept one of those choices, he's a
little more difficult to physically control. You may not want to risk the
natural consequences of allowing your child to fall off the couch, so
sometimes we have to "manufacture" consequences. Then, we go for the
thinking words: People who jump on couches often fall and hurt themselves.
People who jump on couches don't get dessert (or TV, or Nintendo, or whatever
the treat of the moment is). We didn't tell him not to jump on the couch,
and his choices are implicit: if he chooses to jump on the couch he could
get hurt and he will lose dessert. For particularly obstinate situations,
we'd up the ante until we got the behavior we needed, but we would rarely
tell him to outright stop. That we save for truly dangerous situations (like
tonight when he started to walk out into a line of traffic in a parking lot
while he was looking at his new Pokemon cards). We were so surprised when,
in pretty short order, he started responding. He realized that he had
choices to make and that we were willing to make those for him and to stand
by the consequences.
Sometimes, kids can really play us like a violin. If they suspect that we'll
give in, they'll keep at us until we do. In Love and Logic, we give many
choices because we want our children to learn to make responsible choices as
teens and adults. We also let them live with the consequences because those
consequences are a much better teacher than any words or orders I give them.
It takes practice, and I tell my workshop participants from the get go that
some methods and devices and words and choices work better than others on
different children. It takes consistency and practice. And it takes time to
learn to craft appropriate choices and thinking words and consequences.
That's why we do a 4 or 6 week workshop -- to give people lots of time to
experiment and practice in class, to bring their problem situations to the
class for comment and suggestions, to share successes. I don't mean to make
this sound like a commercial for Love and Logic, but if anyone is interested
enough to participate in a workshop, you might want to log onto
www.loveandlogic.com for more information. There's a lot of interesting
stuff there. They can also give names of people in your area who give
workshops.
Carron
Carron