Mama Gone Green is a blog dedicated to raising happy children and reducing our impact on the Earth. My name is Taryn and I am the mother of 2 young kids and an environmental studies instructor at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Please join me as I journey through life as a mama, teacher, knitter, photographer, gardener, and environmentalist!

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The Rules of Summer


A few weeks ago, just as school was nearing an end, this mama had several rough days in a row with the kiddos. They were both fighting with one another, screaming in public, Phoebe was running away from me, and I was wondering how I was going to survive an entire summer with them. It was pretty bad.
So, I decided to sit down with the two of them and come up with some rules for summer. I wanted the rules to be vague, so they could be applicable across all situations and most importantly, I wanted them to help make the rules. I figured that if they helped to come up with the rules, than they were more likely to agree with them, and would hopefully be more likely to follow them. I didn't think these rules would do much, but I figured it couldn't hurt. We wrote the rules down on a sheet of paper and posted them in our home.
And, although the less-than-perfect behavior has not ceased or even really decreased, things have been different. When a kiddo is breaking one (or more) of the rules I stop them and ask which rule they are breaking, or for Phoebe who is younger, I will ask her is she is following a certain rule.... "Phoebe, are you being kind?"
I found that this makes them stop, think about their behavior to analyze if they are breaking a rule or not, and often this is enough to redirect them and make everyone happy again, at least for a little while. Who know how long this will last, but I think it has helped improve things around here. 

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3 comments:

  1. Great idea! Keep us posted on how it works out :)

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  2. This is great! You are a good mama. This brings back memories of so many summers when my kids were little...time goes way to fast. Have a fun summer.

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  3. Love the list and hopefully everyone will stick to it. The no screaming one is high on my list :)

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