A "New" Approach

I needed a new approach on how I wanted to teach my children obedience. What I was doing was just not working and was leaving everyone in the family frustrated! Too many time outs, too many spankings and too much yelling which resulted in unchanged behavior. So I went back to my lessons of "Growing Kids God's Way" by the Ezzo's and the "Mom's Notes" by Joey and Carla Link. "Teach in non-conflict moments" -- what a great idea! I've heard it before and I knew what it meant but I never actually applied the concept in my desire to teach my child to obey. So I sat down and re-listened to the "First Time Obedience" and "Discipline Issues" presentations from the Mom's Notes...and then the light bulb went off! I must have training times during my children's day in order for us to practice and teach them what obedience looks like if I'm wanting any improvement in their behavior. I must teach and show them what type of behavior I expect from them instead of just telling them what they are doing wrong when they are doing it. I finally sat down and started to come up with ideas on teachable moments to train my children based on the teachings from Growing Kids God's Way and from the Mom's Notes.

This blog is a way for me to share my ideas with you so you can use them with your children in hopes of achieving better behaved children too. I have been only doing our training for two weeks now and my friends and family have already noticed remarkable positive changed behavior with my kids. And all it took was for me to create a scrapbook of teachable moments that I go over with my kids each morning so we can practice during non-conflict moments. We call it "training time" and have it every morning right after breakfast. My kids love training time and look forward to it each morning!

A little about our family -- My son will turn four January 27th and my daughter turned two on September 30th -- our wedding anniversary. I'm a stay at home mom who quit my high paying corporate job in order to be with my kids. My background is in Finance (BBA and MBA) so I'm more a numbers person verses a words person -- so bare with me if you find grammatical errors. And the most important member of our family, my husband, is a self employed Graphic Designer.

I hope you find some useful ideas to help your training at home and please feel free to share your comments and ideas on how you are training/teaching particular behavior in your home!

In order for this training to make sense and be effective, I highly recommend you complete the Growing Kids God's Way program "Along the Virtuous Way". The program can be purchased directly from their website at: http://gfi.org -- they typically have a significant sale twice a year -- around Thanksgiving/Christmas and around Mother's Day. Also, the Mom's Notes by Joey and Carla Link offer great in depth insights into the Growing Kids God's Way teaching and principals. Mom's Notes does a great job answering some of your specific questions you may face when trying to implement character training with your children.

Hope you enjoy the journey of "training your child in the way he should go". I hope to add new training ideas as I come up with them. I do have several more to share than what I have posted right now - so make sure to join and follow my blog, leave some comments, and come back soon to get some more ideas on ways to train your kids at home!