Day 3

These are my biggest issues with DNSN this time around:

1. Toby's oral hygeine due to brand-new retainer
2. Hazel toileting independently
3. Hazel's pacifier access (usually they are put out of reach during the day)

Those are the areas where I am really struggling to balance DNSN with the survival of Toby's teeth and our furniture, and avoiding serious regression in the pacifier weaning. The house is starting to look really disastrous, stuff spread all over the floor in nearly every room, including bread crusts and spilled bags of cookies. We are running out of food because grocery shopping is Toby's contribution for the month, and he hasn't mentioned anything about us going.

Here are some of the things my children handled on their own with no parental interference:

TOBY (7)
- brushed his teeth 3 times in the past 24 hours
- wore his retainer whenever he wasn't eating or brushing
- got up on time and out to the bus on time
- packed and remembered his lunch and backpack
- spent time reading
- got ready for bed and went to sleep at the usual time

HAZEL (3)
- used the potty several times
- wiped herself for pee
- washed her hands afterwards
- closed the car door after getting out
- dressed herself once
- put on her shoes
- took off her shoes when entering the house

They are both enjoying the absence of parental restrictions on screentime and dessert, but neither are overindulging too outrageously. I am actually shocked at how little extra dessert they have had - good for me to see, that is an area where I have a lot of difficulty surrendering control. Both children have continued to eat fairly healthy diets.

This go-round may teach me more than anyone else.

Day 2

Neither child brushed their teeth this morning - Toby forgot and Hazel refused. I restrained myself from witholding dessert (brushing is a dessert responsibility) and left it up to them - Hazel camped out in front of the laptop with a bag of cookies. Toby announced, "I'm going to do computer. I'm not asking because it's Do Nothing, Say Nothing week." He did go to school and do his homework. They both brushed last night. They both ate dinner. Hazel nearly came to my La Leche League meeting in a pajama top and nothing else. She dumped some poopy pee water out of her little potty on her way to pour it into the toilet.

But all is well. The only time I have raised my voice was in alarm when Hazel almost whacked a baby in the head with a doll stroller, by accident. So far, so good. House getting progressively messier, but still no perishable food left out to spoil. Love my kids!

DNSN Again!

Urged on by the amount of yelling I was doing, today we started another Do Nothing, Say Nothing week, the first since a few days last summer. My immediate feeling after discussing it at Family Meeting was - freedom! I don't want to do anything, for anybody. But I will try to keep in mind that the purpose is not for me to have a vacation, but to see what the kids can or will do for themselves if we're not doing it for them - and how they will manage themselves if we're not doing that for them. So far today Toby skipped toothbrushing, asked permission for dessert and computer, and asked for help making his lunch. Hazel has been naked for the past 7 hours - except after she fell asleep I put a diaper on her because I just wasn't up to the whole inevitable laundry or sleep-in-pee quandry that would follow. We have a few little messes around but nothing perishable so far. My hope for this week is for the children to discover new things they can do themselves, amd for me to regain some tolerance for less control and more chaos.

Other people's children

I have been trying to pay more attention lately to getting back to PonT strategies. One that I have used pretty consistently is to get out of the car when the kids are screaming or fighting or pretend-crying. I let them know that it is not safe for me to drive with that going on in the car, and they should tap on the window when they are done and ready to go. It usually works pretty quickly to calm things down, or else they get a good vent without my having to listen to it. I can't remember a situation where I was so urgent to get somewhere that I couldn't follow through with this technique.

Hazel sometimes spends a good long time yelling by herself in the car. If I let her know that *now* is when we have to go if she doesn't want to miss her class or gymnastics or whatever, then she can stop right away. But she can be pretty stubborn.

On Wednesdays I bring Hazel to a friend's house in the morning, while I go to Zumba. The friend's grandma watches the girls, then I come back and we all have lunch, then I take the girls to gymnastics class. Today the girls decided they both wanted to sit in the carseat that has pockets on the sides. The friend sat in it and Hazel refused to get in the other one. There was some crying, and I offered to teach them scissors/paper/rock so they could figure out who gets to sit in that carseat first (I did declare that they would switch for the ride back). Hazel was not interested in that, so I said I would wait outside while they figured it out. I got out and shut the door. Then the grandma came out on her way to the store.

It must have looked odd. I explained that they both wanted to sit in the same seat, and I was letting them sort it out. Before she drove away, she asked me if her granddaughter was crying. No, she was fine, but Hazel was still sitting between the front seats. After a few more minutes, I stuck my head in and said it was time to go if they wanted to get to gymnastics on time. I said when I saw two girls in seats, I would buckle them and we could go. Hazel then got into a seat and, to their delight, I taught them the game, which they played during the whole car ride. Everyone happy! We were on time! Worked out beautifully and no one was upset (especially me).

I have never applied PonT to other people's children before. I know from experience that the grandma insists on her granddaughter wearing her raincoat and things like that. After the class, the girl refused to put her pants back on. Now, that would be fine with me - after all, we're only getting into and out of the car - but I knew the grandma wouldn't like it if I brought her back with naked legs in the chilly rain. I decided that I wouldn't let felt judgement push me into a conflict with this little girl over something silly. Luckily, a bit later, I just held out her pants and she got into them while she was paying attention to something else. Problem solved.

It felt like a big success to me to avoid two rabbit holes in the space of an hour - and when people from "the outside world" are involved, it is so much easier to fall in. I love handing the responsibility over to the children. I have experienced time and time again how virtually any involvement on my part just fuels the fire of whatever drama is going on. Gives me a little boost to do it again next time.

Problem Solving

Although my kids are very resistant to using the Problem List at Family Meeting, we have been able to use the Problem Solving method with success several times. Dan presented his problem at the meeting: "I have a problem when people run around the house naked, sticking their hands in their tushies and putting tushie germs on everything."

Here are the proposed solutions:
Dan - wear boxing gloves whenever naked to prevent tushie hands
me - kids are just not allowed to touch anything in the house
Hazel - hop on one foot for ten minutes (??)
Toby - no being naked unless you're changing your clothes or in the bathroom

Dan chose Toby's solution, everyone gave it a "five" (agreement) and we tried it for a week. At the next meeting, we asked how this solution had been working, and Hazel frowned and shook her head "no." With some questioning, she managed to explain that she missed some naked time especially when we play a chase-and-strip game (our most recent and successful solution to the problem of wearing dirty clothes for 5 days in a row). So she modified the previous solution to include an exception for the game, and everyone agreed to try this for a week and monitor tushie hands.

How awesome is it that a 3-year-old can critique and influence family policy successfully?

a new experience

While we were on vacation in Mexico, Toby lost his wallet. We had an annoying 3-bus trip back from a park to our hotel, and we think it was left on the second bus while he was distracted playing with our new camera. He had about $20 plus about $4 worth of pesos in it, and it had been made for him by a friend of ours. He tends to carry it in his hand instead of putting it in a pocket, and so he often puts it down.

We went together and asked the person at the tour desk to call the bus company, and gave whatever information we could remember. He held out hope for a couple of days that it would turn up. As the wallet's real loss dawned on him, Toby told me how much money he thought he'd had in it, and "so that's how much you should give me." I responded that when I have lost money, no one gave it back to me. He understood and got very upset for about an hour. We offered sympathy and when he was feeling better, we told stories of awful losses we have experienced (all our belongings packed into a car that got stolen, for example).

He handled it much better than I would have expected. Today he said, "Next time I won't bring my wallet to another country. I'll only bring it if I know I'm going to want to buy something." So he's taking in the experience and processing some learning from it. Amazingly, there was no whining or asking for things to be bought for him. It really seemed like after the initial reality sank in, he resigned himself to the situation and kept moving forward.

Reading Log

About a week ago, a paper came home from school addressed "Dear Parent". It informed me that my child would now be bringing home a Reading Log every night and asked that I make sure he reads at least 20 minutes a night, and records the book title and pages and minutes read on his log. And that I make sure he brings borrowed books back to school. I read the letter to Toby. Over the next few days, I asked him what he was reading each evening, and if he had completed his log. And I noticed an immediate change.

Toby is a huge reader, as I have mentioned before. He will often read a chapter book in one sitting, brings books to read in the car, etc. And as soon as I started meddling in his relationship with books, it changed. He became reluctant to read, would read for the prescribed 20 minutes only, and had to be pushed repeatedly to complete his log. It didn't take me long to decide that this was counter-productive.

I wrote an email to his teacher explaining that he normally reads at least as much as she wanted, if not more, and books that challenged him - but that as soon as the Reading Log began, his reading became a power struggle between us. I wrote, "I don't want to mess up something with my interference, that was working fine without it." I let her know that I would be leaving Toby's reading decisions up to him, that I felt comfortable with his ability and motivation to push himself, without my involvement. I asked her to address it with him, if the log did not meet her expectations.

She said that was fine with her.

Today he read for about an hour and a half.

A successful communication of confidence in my child, a clear demonstration of how our interference can undermine their efforts, and a constructive interaction with his teacher. Win!