January, 2016:

The other day I found myself venting to a client

Fortunately, he listened and he could relate

Quite a bit of what I had to say related to another client

So he understood

But it was also about my kids … and life

I find myself without an outlet at times

I’m just going through the routines, not always caring for “me”

And then recently I find myself growing impatient with my children

I don’t like the word hate, but I hate when I’m like that

Impatience …. sigh 🙁

I’m stuck in that rut

The weather blows

My client work is at times overwhelming

Kids …

Life …

Sometimes I wish I had already found someone else to love, someone to love my kids, someone to share this with

But most of the times I’m completely happy the way things currently are

The house is a constant challenge to keep up

Work.  Tenants.  Bills.  Groceries.  Activities.  Family.

Life is complex

I’m usually able to handle things well

I don’t let a whole lot bother me

But when I lose patience with the kids and when our poor attitudes affect each other, well something needs to change

But what?

I dislike facebook, most of the time

But today someone shared, perhaps just for me 🙂 (but probably not), someone else’s solution to this same battle

How do we positively influence our behaviors, the behavior of our kids?

Yelling DOES NOT WORK

Punishment, sometimes, maybe

Empty threats … NO WAY

Positive reinforcement? … probably the best option of all

Our Reward Board works … when we use it.

But we’ve forgotten about it and it’s currently covered by a wall of paper grocery bags that need to be recycled

I don’t need that board now but I do need something

So this facebook post …

First, getting together as a family and talking about as many types of good deeds or positive actions we can think of

And listing them out

That gets us thinking …

But then it’s actions

What happens when we do one of those positive things or some other positive thing we didn’t list out?

Let’s not just write those things down on paper, let’s write them on the wall so we can see them every day.

So my job this week is to get some more chalk board paint and take advantage of an empty wall that we see every day.

Once that’s done

Then we need a way to track our progress

When we see or do something good, we record it

When we see or do something … well, not so good, we record it

So in this post they talked about using beans.  Beans in a bowl that end up in a jar when something good happens.  And are removed (in 2’s) from the jar when something not-so-good happens.  Where removing 2 signifies that doing something not-so-good is well not-so-good

And then when that jar is full we find something fun to do to reward ourselves.  So we list out what our reward could be too

So that’s my plan

So here I am venting in my own virtual world

Venting pretty much to myself or whoever might happen upon this post

I love my kids and I want them to be happy … parenting just ain’t so easy :-/

So, perhaps it’s a little ironic

For some reason I kept thinking it had been 9 years since our wedding

Then my daughter, after reminder her of the day, said it’s 10 years daddy

I wonder if I would have really messed up the 10 year anniversary

Doubtful 😉

I’m sure we would have been spending the day … and week somewhere warm and tropical

Oh, yikes, I literally just caught another mouse.  Totally unrelated but they’ve invaded my house.  And while I’m writing this I hear the trap …  little bastards.  My mom is freaking out about them