No Yell Zone

Wow, life has been crazy busy, I cannont believe how long it has been since I have posted, I somehow completely missed the month of March. We spent the first week of April on a much needed and relaxing vacation with family, more on that some other time though. We did realize something while we were gone, we need to adjust the way we discipline our children. There has been a whole lot of yelling going on, and that accomplishes NOTHING!

So my husband and I decided we needed a change, we needed a consequence when we dealt with the children by yelling. His suggesstion was taking away coffee. I know, that would be a huge sacrafice, if you know me, you know I LOVE my coffee. But that really would only work in the morning or if we were drinking coffee at the time, we needed something that would work anytime. So, we came up with writing penalties. Yup, penalties. It was something my husband had to do as a consequence when he was growing up and something that we have used on occassion for our own children. Now, it needed to be more than, "I will not yell at the children." So, the Bible verse hunt began. We looked at several different options and finally settled on one. Proverbs 15:1

"A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."
This is to be written 25 times by the purpotrator as a reminder that yelling is not accomplishing anything except making things worse for everyone.

It's amazing how yelling has such a negative effect, when one person yells then someone else starts yelling, or crying, or something else. No one, and I mean no one, benefits from yelling.

Confession time, since we started doing this at the beginning of the week I have had to write the penalties twice, and my husband once. That being said though, I will admit that it makes me think more before just reacting against the kids. It's a good reminder to take a deep breath and talk to the kids instead of yelling or even talking at them. You know what I mean by "talking at" them. It's not quite yelling but there is a definate negative tone and attitude behind it. I am learning to think more and react less, and I'm sure that's something we all could do a little more of.