Day 28: Long View

:: WHAT REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS DO PRODUCE IS TEMPORARY COMPLIANCE. THEY BUY US OBEDIENCE. -alfie kohn Punished by Rewards

"... if we are ultimately concerned with the kind of people our children will become, there are no shortcuts. Good values have to be grown from the inside out. Praise and privileges and punishments can change behavior (for a while), but the cannot change the person who engages in the the behavior - at least not in the way we want. No behavioral manipulation ever helped a child develop a commitment to becoming a caring and responsible person. No reward for doing something we approve of ever gave a child a reason for continuing to act that way when there was no longer any reward to be gained for doing so." p.161

Expanding on day 19's pearl. If you think I'm running out of pearls, I am! My Mum accused me of cheating for combining Saturday and Sunday, and she's right... Anyway, as parents we want to be thinking about the kind of people we'd like our children to turn into. We need to take the long view and work towards that rather than producing temporary results

Today: I was so tempted to demand obedience, in fact I did try demanding it, it didn't work... A spot of parenting bother at bath time tonight. With Ian putting in evenings at the bowling club (as well as weekends) I've been doing a bit of solo parenting lately and bathing both the kids in the big bath instead of Ian bathing Charlie in the laundry tub and myself bathing Mia in the baby bucket. Charlie did not want to get in the bath tonight. He didn't want to get in the bath last night either but we let him skip it as he was clean from an afternoon bath to wash the nit treatment out of his hair. I wasn't about to let him off tonight, I'd put  Pinetarsol Oil that I bought this afternoon in the water to help with what we think are 'school sores'. Little man is a walking HazMat at the moment.

Anyway, I started to lose my cool. I think tonight it was more of a patience issue, it's not that I was getting angry, I was just losing my patience. Looks the same though, I start raising my voice, demanding obedience... I managed to reign it in but had to physically force Charlie to sit down in the bath multiple times and hold him firmly while I washed him. Not fun. I think he's still so very tired. While that doesn't sound very respectful, here is a story from another mother that needed to 'physically' help her daughter in to her car seat.

Mx

Since I hate to post without photos, there is Charlie and Mia at a family reunion earlier this month.