There are a few things that you can implement immediately in your family that will help reduce the amount of conflict and stress in your day...STRUCTURE YOU & YOUR CHILD'S DAY. When GKGW (Growing Kids God's Way) talks about a structured day, they aren't recommending that every minute of your day is on a strict legalistic schedule but rather to have some type of routine to your day, being of course flexible to things that may come up. Having a structured routine to your day will help keep your children behave better since they feel secure knowing what is happening when and what is coming up next. Also, they behave better because there is something planned to occupy their time with, thus reducing boredom which tends to led to bad behavior. Another great benefit of a structured day is it allows you opportunity to schedule in training times with your children. This has been the biggest benefit I have found now that I have implemented training time into our daily routine. My kids have been much better behaved and friends and family have actually noticed a positive change in their behavior all because we started training time. I have had less chastisement and corrections during the day as well! I feel so strongly about having training time during your day that I hope each of you will at least try it for two weeks and see what changes you see in your children. Non-conflict training really is worth your time and energy to do each day!
Here is our daily routine as an example:
7:00am Breakfast
7:30 Worship & Training Time
8:00 Video Time while Mom showers (I'm going to try to start doing this before the kids wake up...)
8:30 Everyone gets dressed & do morning chores
9:00 Structured Play Time in Rooms
9:30-11:30 Activities/Errands
11:30 Lunch
12:00 pm Clean-up & Unstructured Play Time Together
12:30 Nap for Anna and Quite Time on bed for Owen
1:30 One on One Time with Owen
2:30 Snacks & Unstructured Play Time
3:00 Outdoor Playtime
4:00 Story Time
4:30 Owen Play Time in Room & Anna One on One Time
5:00 Play Time together or Video Time or Help Mom in kitchen make supper
5:30 Family Dinner
6:00 Couch Time
6:15 Family Worship
6:30 Baths
7:00 Bedtime
One thing to remember when creating your structured day - what you plan for today will be different 3 months from now - especially if you have younger children or babies in the home since their needs during the day will change.
The other important thing you can do each day with your child (or if you have several children each one gets a special day) is met their love language. Not sure what your child's love language (touch point) is? Take this quiz over at GFI.org to learn it and while you're at it, take some time to figure out your spouse's love language too. It's important to be filling the love tanks of our children (and spouses) -- this can also help reduce a lot of conflict in the home!
Child's love language quiz: http://www.growingkids.org/leaders/touchpoint-of-love-children/
Spouse's love language quiz: http://www.growingkids.org/leaders/touchpoint-of-love-adults/
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