Old dogs, new tricks.

A few weeks back in church, Adam nudged me and pointed to a blurb in the bulletin. It was a announcement that a parenting class was coming in town and the speaker/teacher was the Director of Education for CCLS the school we are sending Anne to next year. I kind of shrugged and said, Okay.
After the service Adam started talking about Love and Logic and how CCLS uses it in the school as their discipline routine and maybe we should consider going. He was gung ho-so I jumped aboard and we wrote the check.
This past week I have to admit, I was dreading it. I was scared, nervous, and really afraid it was going to be one of those touchy-feely deals that makes you cry and look like an idiot in front of a whole bunch of strangers.
We drove to the church that was located about 45 minutes from us and started our first 2 hours last night. It was fantastic. The time flew by. I only got a touch teary ONCE when someone said something that hit kind of close to home.
The leaders gave us perfectly normal, no brain er type of strategies to use on our kids. Basically, a mistake is made, you use empathy, there is a 'natural consequence' and life goes on. In 'normal type of homes' it is usually, a mistake is made, it is greeted with anger, and punishment is given that is either a) inadequate because given out of anger or b) unrealistic in length of time or event. DUH! How easy is that.
I thought of how often times when Anne does something ridiculous and makes a mistake either socially or by making a bad decision how we scold her with loud voice and then punish her. She returns the emotion by yelling back OR doing another mistake.
I could go on and on. I won't because, I don't get it all quite yet and I don't want to mislead anyone.
I will say that if you EVER have the opportunity to either see presenters teach Love and Logic. Don't think twice. GO! OR if you can get your hands on set of materials either from the library or the bookstore DO IT!
It's amazing.
I'm positive that we will in NO WAY be able to implement all of the techniques into our family BUT we will try and continue to remember the most important thing....IN MOST INSTANCES...greet the situation with empathy instead of anger. Use few words. If nothing else, it will confuse the heck out of the kids. :)

~chat soon!

A very special thanks to Meemaw and Pawpaw who kept the girls for us...so we could go! We love you and appreciate it soooo much! West End our treat next week! :)