Every once in a while, God throws a situation our way that is meant to test us. It is one of those situations that is the subject of this post. Please bear with me, as this one is a little lengthy. But I want to share with you my journey, not just the destination.
This past school year, I had a class that challenged me in
every way possible, like no other class had in the previous nine years of my teaching
career. I won’t dive into details, but let’s just say that by December, I had
tried every behavior management tool I could find. I had tapped into books, websites,
colleagues, hoping that I could find that one thing that just might save my
sanity.
You see, a very large chunk of my family heritage is German. And it is a well known fact that Germans are stereotyped as being stubborn. I have heard this phrase so many times over the course of my 34 years of life that I've just accepted it as truth.
And so, I believe it was my German “stubbornness” that
prevented me from giving up on finding a solution to my challenge. Let's call it stubbornly persistent. I refused to give up. God would not have placed me in this situation without a reason. I knew without a doubt there was something I was meant
to learn from this.
At this same time I was also fighting battles on the
home front. M was struggling with
reading, and there was a lot of frustration and tears at night when we tried to
work with her. As a teacher-mom, it was
KILLING ME that she was having such a difficult time learning to read.
She had also developed an attitude. Have you ever seen the movie 13 Going On 30? Yeah, that was our house, except it was 5 Going On 15. There was a
lot of sass, drama, and stubbornness. Like mother, like daughter.
I was losing my battles, and certainly not winning the
war. I was like General
Lee at the end of the Civil War, trying to figure out what went wrong. I mean, he was the best general in the
country, and he LOST THE WAR. Now I do not claim to be the best teacher in the country, or mother-of-the-year.
But I do believe I am resourceful.
And that resourcefulness led me to someone who would save my sanity with
one suggestion.
It was no coincidence that my OCD had begun spiraling out of control. In fact, I had
a full-blow anxiety attack on Christmas Day.
So when we returned to school in January I asked
our school guidance counselor for some recommendations for private counseling,
and she gave me a few names. I chose the
one she said worked well with both adults and children, as I suspected M was headed down the OCD path as well.
After a few sessions with my counselor I knew she was the
right person. Because of her I now feel
educated about my disorder, am equipped to handle the daily barrage of
obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions, and I’m confident that the right
person is counseling my child.
It was during one of my counseling sessions that I mentioned
the challenges at home and at school. My
therapist’s secret weapon? Love and Logic.
She explained that it would help me understand how to deal
with discipline in a way that was both loving and logical. It would allow both myself and the kids in my
life to maintain our dignity in those types of situations.
At this point I had nothing to lose, so I bought an audio
copy of the book Teaching with Love and Logic. I have a half hour commute
both ways, so listening to an audiobook is a perfect way for me to get some
reading accomplished. The morning that I listened
to the first half hour of the book, I decided to try implementing one of the
techniques that the Love and Logic program emphasizes – enforceable
statements. Instead of telling a child
what will happen to them if they do or don’t do something (in other words, threatening, commanding,
demanding), you tell them what YOU will do instead. For example, instead of requesting over and
over again for children to listen, you are supposed to say “I will only
teach/talk when it’s quiet.”
Now I went into this thinking, “There is no way this is
going to work. If I tell them I will
only teach when it’s quiet, that will give them an even bigger incentive to
talk.” So the first time I tried using
that statement, I was blown away when the students all became quiet and gave me
their attention.
It. Was. A. Miracle!!!
So the rest of the day went something like this:
“I will read when it’s quiet and everyone has their hands to
themselves.”
“I will be happy to send you to lunch once everyone is in a
straight line and not talking.”
“I will dismiss you once the floor is picked up and I see no
trash lying around.”
“I only help students who are in their seat with their hand
raised.”
And it worked. It
worked because I could enforce those statements. They were not idle words of caution, or
commands. I was simply telling them what
I would or would not do based upon their chosen behavior.
After that, I was hooked.
I listened to the rest of the CD, and as I methodically began
implementing the strategies from the program, I noticed a difference in my classroom. I was doing more teaching and less
disciplining. Students were visiting the
principal’s office a lot less because behaviors weren’t getting out of control. I was going home at night happier, and more
relaxed. And I no longer felt like a
failure.
With the raging success of using this in my classroom, I
then moved on to the audio series Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood.
It said it was practical parenting for birth to six years. Bingo!
Thus began a radical overhaul of the way I handled the
children I brought in to this world.
There was a lot more resistance from my own offspring. But I stuck to my guns (remember, I’m stubbornly
persistent) and eventually I found that I was happier, less stressed, and
engaging in far fewer battles.
From that point I never looked back. I purchased so many Love and Logic products, most
of them audiobooks, that I really should have purchased stock in the company. It worked so well that I even convinced my
husband to listen to the CDs so that we would be on the same parenting page.
Okay, I’ve said that this program is amazing, wonderful, fantastic,
blah, blah, blah. But I’ve been pretty
vague on the specifics. There are two
reasons for that. First, I wanted to testify
how life changing this implementation was for me. Second, there are a lot of techniques
involved in the Love and Logic program, too many to write about in one blog
post. So I’m going to do a Love and
Logic mini-series, and share with you some of the strategies that have worked
the best for me both at home and at school.
Topics I plan on covering include:
*The Art of Enforceable Statements
*Delivering Effective Consequences
*Have An Energy Drain (my favorite!!!)
*Sharing Control
*Taming the Angry Beast
*Teaching Kids to Solve Their Own Problems
*Building Self-Concept
If you are interested in learning more about the program
from the minds behind it, I encourage you to visit the Love and Logic website
for more information.
See you real soon!
Allison
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