Love and Logic...a trial spin

We interrupt Random Picture Week to bring you....LOVE AND LOGIC: A Trial Spin.

Sooooo, here's the story. I've always heard about the Love and Logic method of discipline and learning responsibility for children. I have family who are firm believer's in it, one of the school district's we were in used it in the classroom and I've always thought I should look into it. I tend to procrastinate and never really got my hand's on a Love and Logic book, though I have looked up some info once or twice on the Internet. For one reason or another I just haven't ever implemented it in my own family. I have unknowingly been using some of the methods but not fully. With 6 kids, 3 (almost 4) that are school aged and two little ones I've been finding it harder and harder to handle little discipline issues. What works for one kid doesn't work for another. Luckily, I have pretty good kids, but a lot of times I feel stomped on, taken for granted and like my kids think they were born with a silver spoon of entitlement. That is so NOT how I want my children to grow up but I'm the one that's encouraged that attitude! EEK!!

One of my bloggie friends Julie at Hesses Madhouse recently wrote a post about an incident which happened with her son. I'll write a super quick summary but you really should read the whole thing because I'm sure I'll miss some important points. Basically, her children are in charge of making their own lunch each morning for school. Each month Julie also places enough money for several hot lunches in their account. It's the same every month so if the kids go over their limit of hot lunches that month then the money for those lunches comes out of the next months funds. Sooooo, her son was overdrawn on lunches for the month and he forgot to bring his lunch to school that day. So he went without lunch that day as a consequence of his action. A LOT of people blasted her for making him go without lunch but really I just think she was teaching him responsibility. She is teaching that he is capable of making choices and responsible for the consequences of those choices. This was a learning experience for him.



Anyway, back to Love and Logic....she mentioned several times that she uses "Love and Logic" with her 7 children. I decided I really needed to revisit the whole Love and Logic thing and see if it really could help me better discipline my children and teach them some more responsibility. It's not even really about discipline...it's about raising responsible children.



So yesterday while we were at the library for a few hours I actually happened upon the Love and Logic book! Seriously...I happened upon it, I wasn't even looking for it. I decided to check it out and take it home. I don't generally love books like this because they really are like dry toast to me BUT I'm actually finding so much good in this book. I decided to try out a few things today and let me tell you WOW!! I was able to pretty much immediately change some behaviors!



For instance, I asked Ashlynne to do the dishes last night and she didn't. They were totally overflowing onto the counter and there really isn't much space. My initial response is to get angry and say "Ashlynne, do the dishes now or else!' (I never attach anything to that OR ELSE...I'm horrible at follow through) Instead, I decided to try some Love and Logic on her. First, I said "Ashlynne, I really need these dishes done by 2:00pm" (It was noon) I was leaving it open for her to make the choice as to when she wanted to do the dishes as long as they were done by 2. At 1:00pm she came to me and said she really did not want to do the dishes, why me, waaa waaaa waaaa. So I told her, "I don't like doing dishes either. If you want you can see if one of the other kids wants to wash the dishes for you. However, they probably aren't going to work for free but I'm sure they'd love the extra cash. If you have some money you can offer them a couple of dollars to do your job or you can hold on to it and do it yourself.

She thought for a minute, " I don't have any money can I pay them later?"

"No, I'm sorry that's not the way it works. If someone does a job they usually expect to be paid for it when it's done. Maybe you could sell something to earn some money?"

She thought for another minute, walked over to the sink and then decided to do it herself!!!

I was amazed that talking to her, giving her choices, letting her think through the problem and come up with a solutions, actually worked. Now of course I know this isn't a one time fix but I'm giving Love and Logic a trial spin. It's worth a shot and talking to them and letting them make choices farrrr beats getting angry and hollering.