Lately I have been engaged in a series of interactions with both of the older children that are basically exercises in stubborness. They seem to have gotten into a groove of not listening and obeying and often over very simple things, like not touching something, not flinging food around at the table and so on. I’m not actually asking them to do something new, just to continue to follow the same rules we’ve always had.
Today for instance F has sat for a total of an hour and a half. This was not my choice. In each case my requirement was that he would sit for ten minutes (I used to do five but that didn’t seem to get the point across). I use a kitchen timer and it does not run unless he is sitting in the chair with his hands in his lap, and his mouth quiet, and body still. When he chooses to do something other than that the time is either restarted or doesn’t start until he is sitting correctly. Today it has taken 30 minutes or more of my sitting and monitoring him before he was ready to begin the ten minutes….so I am working on outlasting him, a tedious and somewhat thankless task.
It is not entirely thankless as it does eventually produce some results but I suspect I will be spending a good portion of my week on this exercise. It seems that we do this periodically, with each of the children, but especially with F whose ability and interest in arguing and doing something other than what we’ve asked needs regular training into appropriate channels.
I really think that his ability to reason and to take initiative are good things in their place and hope that eventually he will learn when to apply them and when to simply do as he’s been asked.
In the meantime, I’ll try to put the time to good use and update this blog!