Letting My Kids Make Mistakes

I ended up going to the TJEd forum last weekend.  I was a little worried about going this year because I felt that I already had enough things that I was working on and I didn't want to feel like I needed to work on more!  Fortunately, that wasn't the case.  Instead, I felt verified in many of the things I already do and learned some ways to make them better.

One message I heard in every single class that I attended (I went to Shepherding Future Statesmen by Keri Tibbets, Mentors to Match our Message by Mary Biesinger, Love of Learning: Not Just a Phase by Kelli Poll and The ABCs of Teaching Genius by Angela Baker) was that mistakes are a wonderful learning opportunity and I need to let my kids make them.  I already knew this, of course, having made and continuing to make mistakes on a pretty regular basis, but I didn't realize to what extent I was protecting my children from making some themselves.

Kari talked about how once you've taught your children something once, it is not necessary to keep re-teaching the same thing or your voice just becomes "like Charlie Brown's mom" and they don't pay attention to what you teach since you're always going on about the same thing.  I didn't realize how much I gave my children "reminders" until I got home and started trying to implement some of the things I learned.

For example, I have taught my kids to put their shoes in the closet when they come in from playing.  They seem to end up in the hall a lot.  My usual response to this is to remind the kids to put them away (at least I don't pick them up for them right?)  and if they don't do it within a reasonable amount of time, I give them a consequence ("I asked you to put those away and you still haven't, now you can clean the rest of the things in the hallway as well") or something like that.

Instead, what I should do is let them take their shoes off and leave them in the hallway (no "don't forget to put your shoes away" etc) and then give them a consequence without a warning for forgetting.  They have already been taught so now it is time for them to learn from their mistake.

I've been trying this (not re-teaching things I've already taught and giving a consequence when they make a mistake) and I realized on the first day how very often I was in the habit of reminding, "Let's be kind to one another", "Make sure you take your dishes to the sink", "We don't use loud voices in the house", "Don't talk when I'm reading", "Make sure you get your morning list done before breakfast", "Don't leave the kitchen until it's clean", etc.  I'm sure you're getting the picture.

When I got home from the conference, I told the kids how great it was to make mistakes so that we have the opportunity to learn (it took a while to explain that one, but they got what I was saying after some clarification) and that I was going to try to stop reminding them and keeping them from making mistakes so that they could learn from them.  I told them that if I had taught them something once, I wasn't going to insult their intelligence by repeating it over and over anymore.  I would just give them a consequence so that they could get to really learning it.  They though this sounded like a good idea, but none of us realized just how bad my habits were.

The first day, there were a lot of "time-outs" and "pick up 10 items" for consequences for different behaviors.  If there were not 10 items to pick up, I would let them clean baseboards (one wall = 2 items) or scrub toilets (one toilet =10 items) or whatever I could come up with.  Poor Spice got so frustrated at one point that she went to her room and stayed in there for about an hour because she was mad at me (she did come out later and she apologized and told me she knew I was doing all of this because I loved them and she was sorry for being grumpy).  Bud was shocked at one point because I sent him to time-out for yelling out random annoying noises (this has become quite a habit for him and my constant reminders not to do that were not making any difference).  I did try to not make the consequences too severe (time-outs were not that long and 10 items are not too hard to pick up) as we get used to this new way of doing things.

I've been at it for 3 days now.  I don't quite have it down yet and I have to really hold my tongue to keep myself from reminding and sometimes I'll "hint" with some sort of gesture that they are forgetting something, but I am definitely improving - and the best part is that they are too!

Yesterday, they all came in for dinner after playing outside and I was shocked to find that they ALL put their shoes in the closet!  Also, when I ring the hand-bell for dinner, they all actually go wash their hands and come set the table right away.  They are actually remembering to put their dishes in the sink as soon as they are done eating, etc.  What a load off my chest to realize that I don't have to sound like a broken record all of the time!!

One thing that hit me particularly hard was when Keri said that if you interfere in your childrens' conflicts that you make the "victim" more weak and the "bully" more against the victim.  I've always tried to let them resolve their problems on their own and I would try to only step in when I sensed contention (or angry, mean things starting to be said and done) entering the home (I would have them sit on a step and discuss it without contention or they would have to go to time out until they were ready to discuss it without contention).  At least that's what I thought I did, but I have realized that I did often let them tell me their problem and I would try to help them come up with a fair solution (one that someone usually thought wasn't fair) and they would usually go with my solution since I'm the mom and must therefore be right.  Maybe I was right, but what I was doing was making the "victim" weaker and the "bully" or "teaser" more resentful.

So now, when contention starts creeping into our home, I'll give both of the children a consequence (usually a time-out) and then invite them to try again.  It has worked so well so far.  I think the big difference is that when I give them their consequence and they try to explain to me what has happened, I refuse to get involved.  The first time they tried it I explained, "It doesn't matter to me who did what or what is going on.  This conflict is between the two of you.  You two are in charge of your relationship with each other.  Some siblings grow up to be enemies and some sibling grow up to be great friends, but it is up to you.  I can not get involved".  And then I didn't.  One conflict took about 20 minutes for them to resolve peacefully on their own and I really wanted to give my input on an easy solution, but I stayed out of it and they both learned so much more than if I would have solved it for them.

I am finding that I talk way too much.  I've made them a bit dependent on my reminders and advice.  It has been a great thing to watch them actually take ownership of their actions lately and to try to think about and do the appropriate thing without me telling them what that is.  It's been so good for Bazinks as well, but I'll have to write about that later because what is going on with him has been pretty interesting.

By the way, Keri Tibbets is putting a parenting e-book together that should be available in the next couple of weeks on the headgates.org website.  It will have the information she taught in the forum.  You'll have to let me know what you thought after reading it or if you went to her class.  She said some really interesting and some controversial things in there.  I love it when people are willing to say it how they see it even if it may not be very popular.  I admire her courage.

I recommend the other presentations I attended as well.  I picked the presentations well this year and I learned from each one.  Teaching my kids to have a brain "growth" mindset instead of a "fixed" mindset was an important lesson to me (from Kelli Poll).  She recommended the book Mindset to learn more about these mindsets and how to encourage a the growth mindset.  I taught my kids about this and I think it was a powerful lesson.  Maybe I'll write more about that later as well.  Arbinger's James Ferrel was also wonderful.  I've read and re-read Arbinger books and have been to several seminars and I still seem to learn something each time.

I'll try to share some more of what I learned as I try to implement it.  I can't say I'll get to it for sure though.  Time for blogging has been hard to come by lately!  I got up at 3:30 am this morning and after trying to get back to sleep for over an hour, I went downstairs for a snack and decided that I might as well blog a little.  If this post isn't very coherent - that is my excuse.  I'll have to take a nap sometime today!