The Enforcer

I've recently gone through a Renaissance of my own making - I've changed the way I discipline...to an extent. I'm trying to be more creative with the punishments I dole out. I've never been one for the hot sauce/liquid soap on the tongue approach. Further, our lifestyle simply doesnt lend itself to punishments such as taking away television (we don't watch TV) or grounding from playing with friends (we want to preserve the few friendships our kids have, not to mention when you have several children around the same age, those children ARE friends).

Here are a couple of the new punishments I've recently tried:

* My oldest child called one of her siblings a name. As her punishment, I had her look up that name in the dictionary. For that particular word, there were three definitions. After each definition, I asked Casey if her sibling was [insert definition here]. Then I had Casey write the definitions and, twenty-five times, had her write "My sister is not a ___________."

* The children have started glaring and/or staring at each other and making the staree whine to me that they are being stared at. (Ugh! I really hate this one.) So, yesterday when this occurred, I had the two children involved sit on the sofa and stare at each other for 20 minutes - no talking, no complaining - just staring. They HATED it!

* My biggest misbehavior pet peeve is when the children argue in our vehicle when I'm driving. I used to give them a warning or two, then pull off the road. Lately, I've begun, without prior warning, to find a parking lot to park in and we sit and wait until the argument is over. I say nothing. They get the hint quickly.

* Putting dirty laundry away is a challenge for one of the kids. Earlier this week, instead of getting onto him about it, I had Will pick up his dirty clothes. He then had to walk with each article of clothing, to the washing machine, back to his closet, put the dirty article in the hamper, take it out, then walk to the washing machine again. He did it 10 times per article of clothing not picked up.

I haven't yet figured out what to do about the wrestling around on the floor which usually results in someone receiving some minor injury. I have told them that if they roll around on the floor not to complain if they get hurt (unless, of course, someone is bleeding or broken). That solution isn't working well.

Now, maybe they'll start to heed my warnings or, better yet, will do things the first time they are told!