Don’t make me stop this car!
How many times have you, as a parent heard yourself saying those exact words? Those words you heard your own parents say and that you Swore you’d never use?
Now, how many times do you actually repeat yourself to your children before you take drastic action?
I’ve got one son who will yell from another room twenty times before he’ll get up to walk 50 feet to see what I want. The typical response to my calling his name is "Huh?"
My husband gets extremely irritated when I have to repeat an order - whether it’s calling on this child to take the dogs out, to pick up his room, to take a shower — yadda, yadda, yadda.
Once in a while I’ll become irate after request number three. I don’t believe in letting children believe that third times a charm when it comes to obeying the orders of their parents.
My question to you is — How many times do you ask your child to do something before you take the plunge off the deep end. You know that place that makes the child instantly want to ask how high and where to land?
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POSTED IN: Parenting
7 opinions for Don’t make me stop this car!
Lin Burress
Feb 25, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Even those these situations are never funny, I couldn’t help but smile and snicker. It’s so common for kids to do this, isn’t it?
My kids respond the first time, and have learned to come to me when I call their name, and do whatever is asked within the time frame I set.
I’m a big believer in consequences that cause children to take notice immediately, like taking away something they “can’t live without” for a couple of days or so. :)
Karen
Feb 25, 2008 at 5:43 pm
My kids are 2 and 4, so they’re not quite there yet. We do tell them to do something and sometimes remind them of “first time obedience”. They know what that means. We also have a thing where we tell them to do something and if they don’t immediately start moving, we count down 3-2-1-0. If we get to zero before they’re making a serious effort, then they get into trouble! We also started a token cup for my daughter a few weeks ago. She is my challenging one and we had to do something else. I was just so tired of punishing and fussing at her all the time. The token cup is going well.
Lin Burress
Feb 25, 2008 at 5:47 pm
@Karen, What exactly is a token cup? I’ve never heard of that before.
I stopped using the countdown method when my first child was still very young because they will inevitably make you do the full count before budging an inch. Anytime I did counting, I never had to get past “1″. :)
Karen
Feb 25, 2008 at 6:22 pm
My kids know that they better start moving when I start counting. I’ll count faster if they don’t make an effort. :)
A token cup is a behavior system that I used when teaching. Good behaviors get tokens (poker chips) in a cup. Bad behaviors get them removed. It doesn’t have to be tokens. One year when I was teaching, we used colored beads that were shaped like fish and called them jewels. Another year, I gave each child a brown paper flower pot on the bulletin board with their name on it. I had flowers made from popsicle sticks and they could lose and gain flowers. I would tell them that their pots weren’t as pretty without the flowers in them. Another teacher I worked with used rainbows. She had some laminated rainbow stickers and the kids could earn them or get them taken away throughout the week. At the end of the week they had to have 20 rainbows to get a prize.
My daughter is 4, so we really haven’t discussed prizes. Honestly, right now she’s just thrilled to get them and put them in her cup. She’s trying to fill up the cup. When we throws fits, I just tell her she better quit or she’s going to lose a token. When she doesn’t stop, she loses a token. She earns the tokens for doing well with behaviors we’re trying to correct and she can also get them if we catch her doing something genuinely nice.
LMK if you have any more questions. :)
Lin Burress
Feb 25, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Karen, that is an excellent idea! It suddenly reminded me of when my son first started school (many moons ago) and the teacher had little Tonka cars in a plastic tub on her desk. When the kids completed their work without interruptions and talking, they were allowed thirty minutes to play with the toys before going home. It was a great incentive for the kiddos. Great idea! :)
kadi
Feb 25, 2008 at 11:04 pm
We do a points system in our home too. I keep a chart posted on our family bulletin board. The weekly winner gets to chose a coupon out of the “Good Kid” coupon book (the book is published by Hallmark.) The kids love it because it is an ongoing race. But we have so many kids that we have to say things twice, just to be heard, sometimes.
Gayla McCord
Feb 26, 2008 at 6:46 am
When it comes to teens, they’re a whole different ballgame. I’ve begun taking away things like the ipod, computer and cell phone — not sure where to go next. Maybe cleaning the bathroom?
When the boys were little, I used the counting method - UNTIL the began to count for me. Then I couldn’t keep from laughing and had to come up with another game plan.
Teens really do wear on you. I’ve got one that thinks he’s the next stand up comedian extraordinare. He doesn’t know when to stop being funny!
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