With hubby working on and off, at different jobs, for the past 2 years, our family has struggled a bit with schedules and such. It is very hard to plan life when you never know what hours hubby will be home or not.
Princess, who is 8 years old, has been very vocal about stuff surrounding hubby working. When he had one job where he was working 7 days a week about 14 hours a day, she would get so upset that he was never home, understandably. But, when he had the school bus job, he was home most of the day and she wanted nothing to do with him...does anyone else deal with this?
Hubby has had the last 2 weeks off of working since the moving job didn't work out. We have been blanketing the neighbourhood with resumes and finally see a light coming at the end. While he is waiting for the local recycling company to call him back, he is going to work at the school bus place getting the busses ready for back to school.
When we told the kids that this is what he was going to do, everyone thought it was cool, everyone except for Princess, that is. She made a very small and quiet comment "why can't he drive the bus...", and then proceeded to yell and get upset about life in general!! How far do we as parents let the bad attitudes go? I don't know about anyone else, but it is really going too far in our house. No type of punishment has worked thus far and I really need to deal with this before she hits puberty (and I lose my sanity!!)
So, when we got home I had this lightbulb go off over my head (you know, like the cartoons?;-)
I told her to get her Bible and a pencil and a paper. She was going to write a report on why people have to work. I put 3 questions on the paper for her to answer. This took her an hour of thinking and screaming and crying.... but it was worth it in the end.
I am going to post her report here...
1. Why is it important for people to work?
becuo's we need mony.
to pay for soff like soccer.
and so I can have food.
2. What would happen if people didn't work?
they wode have no food.
I wohde have no home.
they have no toys.
3. Why does God want us to work?
Exodus 20:8-10 - God wants us to work, but he does not want us to work on Sunday.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-10 - if you do not work you will not eat.
This is what an 8 year old thinks about. After hubby and I were finished bathing the little ones, we came downstairs and there was a letter on my desk addressed to me and hubby. We opened it and read:
Dear mom and dad
I am realey sore that I was yaling at you
Love ?
I think I found the way that will get through to her. She needs to write and think and write and think. I will definately be doing this again when that bad attitude creeps up. I would love to read her report on how God wants us to behave!!
That's a good idea!! It didn't work so well with Q the time he threatened the neighbour at our old place... but I'm glad you found her "thing". Each kid is so different!!
ReplyDeletethat is a great idea! I have had my kids write out scriptures too. ones that are the truth and the opposite of how they were acting!!
ReplyDeleteWe needed a lot of patience with my daughter when she was growing up, she wasn't easy to deal with at times. I wish I'd thought of doing what you're doing, I think she would have responded to that too.
ReplyDeleteN.B. Now that my daughter is a mum as well, we are best of friends!
speaking of writing. When talking about a friend to someone near my dad, we would have to say "My friend and I". If you were to say "Me & 'the friends name'", we would have to write out lines, it would go up my 10 more lines each time we said it wrong. To this day I correct people as I was never aloud to say "me and 'their name'". It helps to write things out!
ReplyDelete