My father once gave a piece of parenting advice that has always stuck with me. His advice was to ignore 80% of what your children do wrong and admonish the important 20%.
He said not to be one of those parents that always tell his children "not to do that, be quiet, don't pick that up, etc"
But for the 20% that matters, not to budge. You need to figure out what those non-negotiables are?
For me, its lying, disrespecting parents or elders, etc.
One thing that always stuck with me after watching Dexter is the idea of a code. Dexter's father, noticing his son's homicidal tendencies and thirst for blood, created a code for him to live by.
While my children are not Dexter, this idea really resonated with me. What is the code I want to leave my children with? What are the non-negotiable's?
Over the past couple of years, I have been refining the code depending on the kids' weaknesses.
Self managing children and sane parents
how it works
-primary homeschooler(in this case its mom) writes a card for every activity that the kids have to do that week. 1 activity per card. The back of the card has the acceptance criteria for that card. for example, each you're not finished your math work if there is more than 2 mistakes per page.
note: the key to this part is that the mother is talking while writing. this is meant to be a conversation, not a quiet ativity.
note: each child has a different color post it note.
-write & explain every trip that the the kids are plannig on doing this week on a separate color.
-ask each child which items that want to "accept" into that week. there will be a conversation around why they dont want to do those items. they only take items that they want to do for that week. (kind of unschooling)
-ask each child if there is anything *they* want to during the week. add any items they want to do.
note: at this point there may be allot of stuff. that is ok.
-put it all together.
- put the days at the top
- put the trips that the kids are going to do
- now tell the kids to take their activities and put it on the day that they plan finish it on. encourage them to talk through their thought process. if they decide to do everything on the first day to get their "work" overwith, talk them through this. at this point, you will probably need to "split" items into smaller items. this is reaaaaaly important. you are teaching your children how to break down big items. if the child is younger you might need to pre size the activity into bight size chunks
day 0
we setup the board and a surprising thing happened. it was sunday night around 8pm when we finished, and they both insisting on starting right away.
day 1
we woke up to our daughter sitting at our foot of the bed saying she wanted to start the.
my older son broke down
week 1: mixed results
week 2 improvements:
week 3 improvements