Disciplining a Child

I saw a website that had some pretty creative ways to discipline your child, some of them are just silly but some of them might not be to bad to try on Gracie.  The one’s I might try are:

If you repeatedly open the door to your child's room only to catch him in an act of disobedience, take your child's bedroom door off the hinges. It sounds harder to do than it actually is. And it works wonders!

*I think this happened to someone in our family, I just can’t remember.  I am sure it was me, I was always in trouble!

**Also, Gracie’s door is see through (french door) so right now it is not a problem!

An especially tough but effective correction for teenagers who forget to wear their seat belts is to add an additional day past their sixteenth birthday before they can take their driver's test. Hey, it's important!  **I got grounded for two weeks from my car if I was caught without a seatbelt or if I let someone else drive my car!  But then again, I was always grounded!

If your children are constantly turning in sloppy schoolwork, get a few photocopied pages of printing or cursive exercises. (These can be found at any teachers supply store.) Then ask your haphazard child this: "What takes longer: a report done neatly in 15 minutes or one you've sped through in 10 that must be redone and warrants a page of handwriting practice?"  **We will see how her schoolwork is in a few years!

Does your child slam the door when she's angry? You might tell her, "It's obvious that you don't know how to close a door properly. To learn, you will open and close this door, calmly and completely, 100 times."

If your child likes to stomp off to his room or stomp around in anger, send him outside to the driveway and tell him to stomp his feet for one minute. He'll be ready to quit after about 15 seconds, but make him stomp even harder. 

**Gracie is already starting both of these, so might as well try it**

Some of these sound like torture though, like the Barney music or running the backyard to check for turds, YUCK!!  I am sure somehow, this one would backfire!  What do you think?

http://imom.com/parenting/tweens/parenting/training/21-creative-consequences/#.TyKjpq57m-Q.facebook

Blessings

Sometimes when you least expect, God throws a curveball of a blessing your way. It is nice to not be expecting anything and then BAM! Right in the kisser!


I think sometimes in life we are so busy and get caught up in the rat race of life, that we forget to slow down and enjoy life’s little moments.

Let me just say how proud I am of my husband! I love him dearly and I am so glad that God is bringing great things into his life!

Daily Devotional for Gracie

We have been working really hard on praying together as a family, teaching Gracie to pray, reading a daily devotional at night with Gracie and trying to get her to memorize memory verses out of her book. She loves to see what story is coming next in her book:




http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310714818/ref=oh_o02_s00_i01_details




A friend of mine recommended this book, and Gracie loves it. We all do! We tell her a story, then a bible verse and make her repeat it. We just finished it last night, and we are already looking forward to starting all over again tonight!

Things that are swirling around this pretty little head…

So many things that I have been thinking about lately…

We are starting a small group on Sunday and Brian is leading it.  He is very nervous and it is a very in-depth study.  It is called 40 Days in the Word.  Please pray for guidance for him and please pray that he knows where to lead us.  We are suppose to pick a project as a group to do, and he is getting very nervous and overwhelmed. 

If you were categorized as a mom, would you be a modern mom or a perfect mom?  What about as a wife?  I am by far a perfect mom or a perfect wife.  As some of you may know, I don’t do Brian’s laundry, I never have.  Now, I will help him out when he needs me to, but just to throw his clothes in with mine, I don’t do it.  I do all the other laundry in the house, but his.  Why is this?  Why don’t I do my husband’s laundry??  I also don’t have the cleanest house in the world.  Dust is on my furniture, and yes, my cabinet is cluttered with papers that my daughter brings home daily from Pre-K.  Don’t even get me started on my second bedroom.  It looks like a hoarding situation in there.  Does any of this mean I love my family less, NOPE, sure doesn’t.  I like to come home and spend time with my family, not cleaning.  Since I work full time, I like to come home and spend time playing barbies or coloring with my daughter, or even enjoying a TV show, that all three of us can watch.  Of course, this is after dinner is made and cleaned up.  Gracie is only with me three hours a day before she goes to bed, why would I want to spend that time cleaning and away from her or away from my husband who I haven’t seen all day!

What about as a friend and a sister/daughter?  I have to work on these for sure!  If anyone was to describe me, I would hope somewhere in there, they would put honest and trustworthy.  But, just being there for people in my life, I definitely need to work on.  I should spend more time with my friends/family, I should make time for girl time!  I try to get a lot of this done at lunch if possible, because like in the previous paragraph, I only get to see my daughter and my husband a few hours a day, so I want to spend time with them!  But there comes a time when you need girl time! 

Diet/Exercise…UGH!  I am trying to get back into the swing of things and I have been faithful going to Zumba, but the eating is a different story.  It is hard to get back to hungry.  I mean, it is hard going without again.  Use to, I would just shovel it in whenever I was hungry and now, I have to find healthy snacks to eat and to not overeat them!  I am also dealing with some back pain.  I want to do crunches, etc… at night, and I don’t mind doing them because it takes all of 15 minutes to do a little routine, but my back is hurting and I am thinking it is because I am trying to get used to all of it again.  ALEVE, I need you!