Bad behavior post in-laws visit

It's been a week since my in-laws have left our house.  They stayed for more than a week this time.  Every time they come visit, it seems like the boys' behavior go downhill from the beginning and last for a couple weeks.  Discipline would get much looser and my motivation to be consistent also goes down.  I'm making this sound very terrible, right?

Tonight, Steve and I had this discussion of what to do when his parents are visiting.  It's been a vicious cycle of us training the boys, then his parents come, they behave badly, then we end up re-training.  I was putting the blame on them, that they keep interfering and letting the boys loose.  However, Steve brought up some very good and key points that I hated to admit - his parents are not the ones to blame, we are.

We are the owner of our kids, so no matter who is in our house, we are solely responsible for their discipline.  Yes, we will face disagreements and interference from my in-laws, however, we still don't give up to do our part.  We got more passive and lazy when Steve's parents are there to help, therefore, the boys got more opportunities to get away with things.

In the coming days, we'll be have clearer communication with Steve's parents so that we're on the same page with expectations.  Hopefully this will avoid some of the issues we've had.

Clean up your toys or ....

It's been so difficult asking the boys to clean up their rooms.  Every time it's like a battle of wills.  Every time they say "not now".  Every time it takes them forever to do it.  Every time they don't remember to not make a big mess so they can spend less time cleaning up.  So following a good friend's advice, we are now giving them each 15 minutes to clean up the toys in their rooms after quiet time, whatever is left on the floor after the timer goes off go into a bag for a week.  They also need to do the same to clean up toys from the family room after dinner, or they'll lose their toys for a week.

We've implemented this for 2 days, Noah lost a few toys in the family room the first day, he was angry - which was good.  That means it's working.  He quickly learned the lesson and hasn't lost the toys in his room since.  Ethan, however, it's taking a bit longer to learn this lesson.  He still gave me the "not now" response last night.  We ended up just giving him 2 minutes on the timer and took some toys away.  Today when his friends wanted to play with hot wheels, he knew they were in the bag, and was disappointed he couldn't play with them.  I hope that this will be a good reminder for him.  Steve and I still need to more consistent keeping this up each day.  Our goal is for them to learn not to make big messes to begin with, and learn to organize things in a more efficient way so clean up won't be as difficult.

Sick day equals fun lessons!

The family is caught with colds again...but the boys are pretty much recovered while I just got started.  I've been so congested that it was hard to think, but I still wanted the boys to have a great learning time, so we did!  I knew I couldn't really do all the subjects, so I decided to focus on one subject per day.

Yesterday we did devotion time, prayer time, then a great fun Math lesson.  For the last 4 weeks, we've been recording the weather in our city (sunny, rainy, cloudy, snowy) on a picture chart provided by the curriculum.  So yesterday we plotted the "data" into a bar graph.  They were not sure what to do at first but eventually kinda get the idea.  

To further expand the concept, I decided to make another graph by asking the boys the count the number of crayons in the boxes on the table.  We only recorded red, blue, green, and orange.  Each boy got to count their own box.  This allows them to practice counting, sorting out the colors, and doing addition as well!  After we finished plotting the graph, the boys got to learn which color we had most and least, how to read the number, as well as their ordinal position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th).  It turns out we have the most blue crayons (including broken piece).

 

After that, I had another idea to help them learn the concept even further.  They both are really into Bey Blades and I thought it would be fun to find out which Bey Blade is the strongest, the champion.  I let them choose 4 Bey Blades they battle the most and we'll record each battle up to 10.  Whichever Bey Blade wins 10 battles first is the champion!  They even drew pictures of the Bey Blade to go with the graph.  So they've been motivated to add the winnings to the graph!  

After the fun lesson, they used their free time to make cereal box robots.  

Is it God or us?

In this past week and a half, we have seen a positive change of attitude in Ethan.  He had less tantrums and was much more cooperative in doing schoolwork and other things.  He was quicker to obey than before.  I was wondering if it could be related to our change of discipline method.  We now send him to his room when he gets angry or throws a tantrum, so that he can cool off, then talk to him afterwards.  He really doesn't like to go to his room, so maybe the "threat" of being sent to his room motivates him to behave?  Also, when he fights with Noah, I now tell him if he keeps it up, he doesn't get to play with his brother for a while.  He immediately changes to a gentler tone and more cooperative.  This affirms his love for his brother, thankfully.

Tonight I asked my husband if he thinks Ethan is behaving better due to our new discipline method.  He said that he's sure it's not what we're doing but God's.  I then recognized this truth as well.  It is true that we can use all kinds of creative methods to train and discipline our kids, however, it is God who can change our kids' hearts.  This is also why it's so important for us to pray for our kids all the time.

Dear God, I thank you for working in Ethan's heart for the past week and a half.  I have seen some great changes in him, despite the setbacks the previous weeks.  Thank you for allowing me to work with him little by little, to see that he is indeed trainable.  Lord, I lift up his heart to you this week, may it be soft and moldable, desiring to be good, to honor you and us.  Help me to have a great attitude while teaching and disciplining him as well so we might model Christ to him.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.