Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Good Manners Gone

There is a really good book that my kids read, The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners. Momma Bear gets soooo frustrated by the lack of manners in the home, and the fact that nobody listens to her {consider me Momma Bear in my house}. So she compiles a chart for the family. It goes something like this:
Name-calling ~ cleaning the cellar
Fighting ~ dusting the downstairs
No please and thank yous ~ cleaning toys
And etc etc etc
Brother and Sister Bear decide to "outsmart" Momma Bear and be overly nice to each other thinking that Momma Bear will hate it and drop the rules. Instead, Momma Bear loves it and after a little time goes by, Brother and Sister Bear fall back into their normal good manners attitudes. Papa Bear has issues though and ends up doing most of the housework, but since there isn't a Papa Bear in my household, I won't dwell on that part of the story.

So how does this relate to me? My boys have forgotten their manners. And anyone who reads this will be thinking I'm crazy, because my boys behave splendidly everywhere they go...unless they are with me. With me....they have lost their manners. Nate is getting good, he realizes that its not fun to get yelled at so he listens for the most part. He just cries if he doesn't get his way at times. Tyler...well he doesn't listen at all. Doesn't want to help. Doesn't like to do much. And when he gets in trouble, he lays down and laughs. Ryder, just screams. Loud, blood curling screams. Fantastic.
So just call me Momma Bear, I am making a new chart. If they misbehave, they will get to do a chore. No warning, no yelling, no explaination. Once the deed is done, the consequence follows. I hope it works. I need to get control of my house again. I'm not sure what happened to make it slide, but I need to regain some sanity. Wish us luck!

2 comments:

  1. I love this idea! Have you ever watched Super Nanny? I never believed in Time Outs until I started watching it. If done right, they really do work!

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  2. yeah we do timeouts as well and they work most the time, but I want to be able to nip it in the bud before I have to do timeouts. So hopefully this works.

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