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childishness or disobedience
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Let me start with a little background if that helps. We accepted Christ 2-3 years ago. As a result, we’ve made many significant changes to our lifestyle, home life, friends, etc. Our dc have accepted these changes due to their young ages (7, 6, 3, 7 mos). We’ve read many christian parenting books (well, I have…hubby can’t seem to make it through them while he can read any other subject with ease). Our oldest as many of you know has special needs. That certainly plays a role into her behavior and I think the others, being younger, can feed off of that. She also has trouble with being quiet…she cannot close her mouth!
So, we don’t care about outward obediance as much as we want to make sure we are addressing the heart. We are always talking about issues and explaining the “why” behind them. They will lose tv, go to room, stand at wall, or spanking if needed. We role play, read good character books, etc.
Some things keep happening that are driving my husband nuts (and sometimes me). He thinks they should know better and he relates it to when he was a child (that he would never have done ___). So we’re not sure if it’s a maturity/childishness thing or obedience/defiance.
Here are a few examples of what we are experiencing:
-We pray at meals, bed time, and any time we need/want to. Someone usually interrupts even if we remind them to close eyes, bow head, etc. There has been improvement at meals but bed time is still the worse (and it’s with hubby).
-We tell them we need to make a phone call and specifically ask for quiet. They end up in the same room playing/shouting as if we didn’t say a word to them.
-They were trained to place a hand on our arm if they needed to interrupt us. This is 50-50 that they actually do it.
-They tell us they don’t like us, we’re mean, etc
-If we ask them to do something or to stop doing something they sometimes argue “why, blah, blah, blah…”
My husband thinks they are completely out of control and rude. He says they only think of themselves. I certainly agree but I also see the improvements they’ve made over the few years. I also see them think of each other, ask to pray for others, and want to serve. I also see their selfishness but I think it’s their age. They don’t watch a lot of tv already so it’s usually time alone in their room (they hate being alone). Any thoughts? We just want to know if it truly takes this long to get them to respect and obey, keeping into consideration, their big sister that has major trouble controlling herself.
Thanks. You may be as honest as needed!!
Sounds like our house! I have ages 6, 5, 4, 4 and 2. When our kids have issues during prayer, they have to do extra “practice” afterward. This involves being quiet and still with eyes closed until the timer goes off (I usually do 2 minutes). Same things happened with my phone call yesterday and all kids (except 2yo) were required to be completely quiet to “practice” being quiet since they failed on the phone call. I think these two issues are simply a matter of training, and requiring an unpleasant consequence (practice) to help them learn to do it the right way. When my kids don’t put their hands on me for interrupting, I will tell them they can try it again in a few minutes to do it the right way. Same thing if they ask something without using good manners.
The mean things they are saying would be considered being disrespectful, and children need to learn to respect their parents. I would isolate for that, and then make sure they apologize. If they are arguing about what you tell them to do, I teach my kids that they need to respond “yes maam” when I tell them what to do. They need to learn that you are the authority and what you say goes.
Our situation is somewhat similar in that we have 3 bio kids and 2 foster children (ages 5 and 4) that didn’t know a thing about Jesus before moving here 4 months ago. We have had a lot of training to do, and they certainly lack self control, but we are making progress. We are teaching them to fold their hands to practice getting self control when they are having trouble. Certainly sometimes this causes tantrums, but eventually it works!
I think it can be overwhelming to think of all the things that you want to change. I’d recommend picking 1-2 things that are the biggest offenses and working on them, then moving on to smaller things later.
Our house too:) Except the disrespectfulness, that isn’t tolerated. We definitely have the prayer time, phone time problems too. Good advice above, we do the same, extra time practicing. We do that also with not putting the hand on the shoulder and waiting patiently. We have taught ours to only say “Yes Maam, Yes sir”, never “but or why”. They are allowed to say, “Yes maam, may I ask you a question?” There are often things that need clarified first, but often times not:) You can choose if you want to listen to the question or not (some children always think of silly questions to stall, etc.)
Of course they only think of themselves, don’t we do the same most of the time?:) We put on a chalkboard “Think of others first” as a reminder, and you just have to keep talking to them about it, reminding them (and ourselves:) to think of ways to show love, help others, etc.
Sounds like you are doing a good job trying to implement changes. Stay on the same page with your husband and keep it up!
So is it age appropriate behavior?
I like the idea of picking 1-2 to work on. I had an idea of a game for being quiet. Randomly tell them to be calm and quiet and start with 1-minute and work our way up. I don’t know if that will work.
And for interrupting the prayers I told my hubby that maybe they should have a turn saying prayers first and then he can close.
Thanks for the ideas.
We pray at the end of Evey meal for different people…family members, governemtn officials, missionaries. Every child gets one day of the week, and each child gets a chance to pray for that person on their day of the week. So 6yos day is Monday, and at dinner all kids get a chance to pray for him. We have to limit how much the kids get to pray because some can be quite chatty!
I would say it is age appropriate for children who are not taught or trained to do otherwise. Our natures are impatient, lack self control, etc. The disrespect is a really big ißue though. Charlotte mason says the most important traits to work on are obedience, truthfulness, and attention.
I would say it is age appropriate but you need to be working on it. I like the idea of having kids pray too.
Nebby
mama_nickles “I would say it is age appropriate for children who are not taught or trained to do otherwise”
This is our problem. We have been working consistently on all of these things for 2 years. How long does it truly take for a child to understand what we’re asking?
We deal with some of the same things with our soon to be 5 year old. Also he constantly interrupts: if hubby or begin to speak, not halfway into a sentence ds starts to speak. Any specific ideas to dealing with that? I don’t think it is intentional,but somehow us speaking triggers him to want to join in.
Perhaps you haven’t given strong enough consequences so far? Definitely some kids are more strong willed, and some take a longer time to pick things up. Your two oldest had a number of years to learn bad habits before you became Christians. Its definitely easier when you start earlier! Be consistent, give consistent consequences, and explain to the kids why you are doing what you are doing. You want them to learn good character, to learn how to respect others and get along with others. They need to be on board.
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