Totally giggling at this week's Homeschool Village topic:
What is expected of your children? How do you handle interruptions or poor behavior? Do you have homeschool detention?
Let me say first off -- the main one who struggles with discipline around here is ME. I am the lazy one, especially after taking a long summer off. I am the one who really needed to get up and go for a walk this morning and decided that no, what I really needed was more sleep, and then proceeded to go back to bed. Funny that this week, the Lord is really working on me in that regard, reminding me that if I'm going to say "why bother doing something if you're only going to halfway doing it?" while halfway doing things myself, well ... I need to step it up a little bit, in several areas.
So now that I've exposed y'all to THAT, I'll tell you how it all works in our homeschool.
The girls know what is expected of them each day. I have a calendar that I fill out every week with that week's assignments. They can look at the calendar and see what lesson they need to do and if there is extra work or other things. They're 4th and 7th grade, so this works pretty well to let them know what I expect from them. It was a happy day when I realized I didn't need to pull out worksheets any more; that I could just write it on the calendar and leave them responsible for getting it done. If they get up on time (this is our biggest struggle right now) and work diligently, they should have all of the day's work done by 1:30 - 2:00. What's not done is expected to be done before computer time, TV time, phone calls, etc.
Interruptions and poor behavior. Usually I reply with poor behavior myself. I've had more than one good southern hissy fit over seeing my children exhibit poor behavior. I'm sure they're learning a ton from my good godly example.
That said -- we have discovered what works for each kid, for now. You know how they all have a love language? Turns out they have a discipline language as well. The oldest? Merely the threat of taking the phone or email away and she starts polishing her halo. The middle one? She wants to be around people, so banishment to her room works well for her. Also, they're both old enough to be able to do things with friends and have various privileges, so taking those opportunities away is very effective around here. This is the one area that has gotten much easier as they've gotten older. Well, the discipline hasn't gotten easier, but figuring out what is effective for each of them has.
Homeschool detention -- giggling at that one. I'm not sure who that would punish, them or me, if I had to be the one to enforce it!
There are times when I have put in a call to the principal, DAD, to help with some bad attitudes, but for the most part, they're both kind of like me - the temper may flare and an attitude may pop up from time to time, but mostly it's a short-lived thing, and then we can move along happily. :)
The main rule I've been trying to enforce lately with the girls is that in their squabbles with each other, and me, and with their friends, I believe the Lord is more concerned with how they treat each other than with them being right in the situation. It drives me crazy to see them bicker over which one left her pencil out and spend way more effort fighting it out rather than one of them just picking up the pencil! And yes, folks, that is an example from this very day. We read about Joseph forgiving his brothers for selling him into slavery and five minutes later fight over who has to take the pencil from the table and move it 2 1/2 feet to the pencil jar. Awesome.
So, that's it for the rules and discipline around here. :)
(btw ... a word to you on the blog hop! Thank you so much for visiting and commenting on my blog! I am WOEFULLY behind on returning the favor.
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