Sharing your exp w/ Rails & Obedience

I have been very encouraged and convicted by many of Charlotte Mason’s writings on child training – this woman was wise beyond her years and especially not to have children of her own. I like LDTR having all of the habits complied into one source. As far as obedience goes I think there are several things that have helped me with my children that I have gleaned from others:

1. slow obedience is no obedience – if they are waiting for me to say it a second time, or to begin to discipline them, it is too late. Discipline at every offense.
2. consistency, consistency – there are days that it seems that all I do is correct (my kids are all fairly young still) but it is okay for some housework to fall by the wayside if it means working on character. Don’t let up and be consistent in what you discipline for and in the consequences you give – when they know that they will get disciplined for this particular thing every time they do it and they know what the consequece is for doing it (because you are being consistent) you can erradicate it much better. Whereas if they know they can occasionally get away with it if you are busy (for me that usually means on the phone) or if the consequences vary, they’ll keep testing that boundary over and over.
3. spell it all out for them – kind of the same as above, if all the rules are very clear it helps all parties involved. And they really appreciate structure and boundaries being firm – like you said above – it’s similar to having them on a schedule as babies – they are much more content and settled when they know what to expect.
4. get them involved in working on it too – I love the advice (I don’t know if it is Sonya or CM) of if you are the only one working on it, you aren’t going to gain much ground – you have to get their will on your side. Help them understand why it is important to be obedient (at our house we emphasize that obedience to your parents is obedience to God and He is pleased when they obey – we don’t want them to obey just because “we say so”). Teach them that they have a will and it is a very useful tool to help them do what they may not want to do sometimes (in CM’s Home Education, she has a lot of good writings on the will)
5. give them rewards/natural consequences – we make a big deal when we see them overcome something they have been struggling with. When we see obedience in an area that we’ve been working on and can see they’ve been trying hard (like when we see them pause and choose to obey rather than have a fit or say “why/but/I want to do….”). We’ll have a special dessert or something, but usually verbal praise is good enough for them, though I’ve never seen them turn down a special dessert. 🙂
6. training my children is as much about training them as it is training me !! It is all much easier said than done. The Lord is gracious and merciful and I am so thankful for it!

your welcome. We certainly don’t do it perfectly here or have it down to a science – I have to remind myself of all of these things everyday. That “list” is a lot of wisdom I have gleaned from many dear friends who are a bit ahead of me in the childrearing process. On a more lighthearted note I guess, I thought of something fun (at least for us) that was a very practical help. We found that putting things in print for my son to see really helped. I have a general schedule of what we do everyday that I go by but I guess he didn’t observe that it was pretty consistent – he was always asking to do something other than what I had him doing at the time. So, I wrote his daily schedule down for him (very broad, hours at a time for some things like “outside play”) Before he could read well I put clip art pictures by each time. We posted it on the fridge and it made a huge difference. He would look at what he had just done and he knew what was coming up next. This helped me not to nag as much because if he didn’t just look to see what to do next I could say “what does your schedule say? is it time for that yet? etc.” rather than having to remind him of every little thing or repeat myself. (see the LDTR connection?) It helped him think for himself more and not to question my decisions as much because it was concrete for him and not just in my brain anymore. Even for him to be so young at the time, it really helped calm the house down a bit. Then we were dealing with more important issues and not having to discipline for the same little petty things. I guess it’s that whole boundary thing – kids like them whether they want to admit it or not. We also made a list of the bad habits he was working on and posted them on the wall – that helped too. For both of those posted things it made it more his work and not just mine.

I just watched the LDTR DVD and have started to read the book. I have young children and look forward to the day that I can have smooth and easy days, but I am afraid it is going to be a long road to get there! I echo what some other members are saying about having to change personal habits first! I don’t think I have a lot of bad habits, just enough to where I need to train myself first before starting on my children. The problem is, who is going to help me correct those bad habits! I know that with the Lord’s help and with some self awareness, I can start working on getting my tracks fixed before laying down those rails for my children. Wish me luck!