Love and Logic

Parenting is hard.  Plain and simple.  Sure, it's a blast and there are so many wonderful things about it, but when you think about how responsible you are for bringing up a child the "right" way it's a bit overwhelming.  

Cody and I are by no means perfect parents and are still learning things each and every day.  Early on in K's life I read the Love and Logic book about discipline.  I loved the ideas that Love and Logic had for the classroom and I was interested to know what the parenting approach was.  The two are very similar and I thought it would be easy to implement from the get go.  I especially love the "going brain dead" part.  Easy enough and keeps me from saying something I will regret later.  

I will admit thought that sometimes I felt like I was going a bit overboard with somethings.  If K argued with me at all I would say, "Uh oh!" and put her in timeout.  It seemed so silly at the time, but man am I thankful for it today!  She is so respectful and I am so thankful I took the little steps before.  Is she perfect?  No way, but I see other kiddos and how they talk to their parents and how it could be.  

Cody took a little longer to get onboard with the whole Love and Logic thing.  He thought the whole thing was ridiculous at first and had the mindset of we're the parents so you'll listen to us no matter what.  It's how most people my age were raised and we turned out just fine, but I think about how exhausted our parents must have been!  Once Cody saw easy it was and how much it worked we double teamed it and the results were even better!  

Cody and I have even had the chance to lead a dvd series of Love and Logic parenting classes for our church twice and once for another church.  I always feel like I have to defend myself because we only have Kaitlyn and I know it's much harder with multiple kids.  Then again I've done it for 8 years with an average of 20 kiddos in a class and if you don't think that takes time and practice please come to my classroom and try it out for a day.  Dare ya!  ;)

I'm writing this today because I was going through some pictures on my computer and found this one from my niece's birthday party that was in August.  She was trying so hard to open her presents and the rest of the kids were crowding around her and "helping."  My sister-in-law had asked them several times to sit down and they just wouldn't listen.  My sweet K never once got out of her seat and looked back and me and gave me a thumbs up.  In that moment I was so thankful for all the time we had put into implementing Love and Logic.  As I said, she is in no way perfect, but I was one proud mama that day.  It was worth all the looks I've received in public for taking her to her "mobile uh-oh spot" or the tears I've seen for making her pay me with toys.  

I'm sure I'll have to read the teen year Love and Logic book too....but quite frankly that scares me to death right now so I choose not to think about it just yet.  I'm enjoying the young years too much right now!