If he wants to be a clown...then let him be!

I wonder if every 6 year old boy goes through this....but Ethan has been acting more and more like a clown lately.  He is getting the wrong attention from others by acting funny, saying weird and funny things, and enjoy the response from his friends.  It's been spreading to his last two Sunday school class and the last lesson at our co-op.

Steve and I were trying to figure out what to do to discipline him.  We had talks with him previously about this sort of behavior but it didn't seem to affect him in any way.  Taking away things would not matter as much to him at this point and can't connect to the bad behavior.  So I came up with this.  I grabbed a plastic take-out soup container, wrapped it with a green construction paper, and wrote "clown" on it with a sharpie.  Ethan had to wear the "clown" hat for 10 minutes against the wall with all of us watching.  I even took a photo of it.  This might seem excessive and even mean.  The 10 minutes was tough for Ethan.  He cried the whole time.  Steve then had a long talk with him in his room.

This morning I had another talk with him asking how he felt when he was goofing off during class.  He told me he wanted to be funny.  I said that it's okay to be funny sometimes and make people laugh, but doing so in a classroom setting is definitely not appropriate.  I asked how he felt when he had to wear the "clown" hat last night.  He said he felt sad.  I told him that real clowns belong in a circus and our family is not a circus.

Today we also learned the bible verse "Even a child is known by his actions, whether their conduct is pure and right." (Proverbs 20:11).  I explained to both boys that their actions can result in good reputation or bad reputation for both themselves and their parents.  They wouldn't want people to know them by being naughty and disrespectful, but rather helpful and gentle, and have self-control.

Lord, thank you for giving me patience today to teach the boys these lessons.  It's been so hard to be consistent, to be tough.  But you command us to train up our children in your ways.  Lord, give me strength and grace to work with them.  Give me teachable moments so I can teach them with your word.  May they keep your word in their hearts and have the desire to do good.  Tomorrow is another day.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Running a tight ship is....exhausting!

We've always been trying to train the kids to obey the first time instead of having to count 1, 2, 3.  However, it's easier said than done.  Lately due to tiredness, laziness, and other reasons, we've been more loose in our discipline, resulting in kids who are slow to respond to our calls.  What really raised the red flag was when Ethan's Sunday school teacher told us that he wasn't responding when he was called on 7-8 times.  We knew at that point that things needed to change immediately.

Steve and I had a long talk about how and where we went wrong.  Mainly we had been giving too many chances for the boys to come to us, and too many warnings before discipline occurs.  Our action plan is to keep the boys on their toes, and expect them to obey the first time or discipline happens right away.

It's been a week now and things have been better.  When they're called, they would say they're coming and respond quicker.  I'm hoping this will come naturally and become a good habit.

Another thing that's been tough was school time.  The boys were just used to learning against things and sitting in whatever position they wanted.  I allowed them to be too comfortable and they had a hard time paying attention.

To change this, I asked them to sit on two plastic stools so they can sit up straight, with their bottoms on the seat the whole time.  They still fidget and struggle to sit still, but it's in working progress.

Running a tight ship this week has been sooooo exhausting physically, emotionally, and mentally!  However, I praise God that I see little progress here and there.  We should always rejoice in small victories!