Seeking advice about gossip at school, my Daughters friend told her that she cannot sleep over at our house because her parents said they "hate" us because we moved here from California. How should my 11 year old daughter respond?

Hello Nicholeen:

As you know, my son has ADD symptoms, I wonder how to teach him to time management and organizing. I printed a time log with 15 minutes intervals for him to fill in everyday, but if I'm not reminding him, he'll not do it, and for the homeschool routines the things we do everyday, if I don't remind him, most of the time he's do nothing. And his toys and legos and clothes and papers are always on the floor, on the kitchen counter, by the sink, I have to constantly remind him, but I don't know how can he not remember? If I clean up the house, it won't last for one day, when I come back from work, the floor will be covered with stuff, couch is messy, it create a lot of stress to me. I tried to take his toys or lego away for several days, didn't help.

Thank you, Nicholeen. Talk to you soon!
Jenny

Thank you

Hi Nicholeen!

I feel like I’ve been continuing to work on becoming gentler and softer with my tone, so if you have any tips on continuing to improve on that, that would be appreciated.

My family however, seems to be bothered when I intentionally try to speak in a very soft way, and very intentional with my word choice, and they say that it sounds weird or unnatural (my son yesterday was saying it does not sound natural to say “out of instructional control” or “disagree appropriately“). While I understand that it’s more important to observe the principles, rather than specific wording, I have hesitated to change any wording from the scripts much, because I know that they are tested and tried in the trenches! Would you recommend adapting the wording to try to have it feel more natural to the family? Or simply sticking with the scripts until they get used to it (and then is more expected perhaps sounds natural coming from dad?)

I know out of control can also be used, but to me it also seems inaccurate when a child is rolling eyes, walking away, slumping in their body language, talking back but without yelling… These could be argued as still being in control, however they are not willing to take instructions so I see the benefit of using the specific “instructional control” description. I’ve played a little bit with saying something like “you’re not ready to receive instructions”. Our son who has been oppositional, argues that “he will never take instructions from me” use that I am trying to control him!

I know that these are also all things that in theory could improve if we do pre-teaching properly and get the family to understand the whole program, but that has been extremely difficult especially since Mom is not on board, so I’m trying to chip away and little by little implement this while still offering Everyone an opportunity to understand what I’m doing and why.

Thank you!

How many hours do you think it requires a mother to study per day to get a good scholar phase?

Hi Nicholeen! I was just curious as to how you suggest we correct behaviors when a child is sick? My ten years old daughter has been sick the last few days, and she can get pretty grouchy during this time. She also hasn't had much energy so I've been hesitant to have her do a chore when misbehaving. I have been trying to bring to her attention things that she's doing that aren't respectful, like an annoyed/mean tone in her voice when speaking to us and what to do instead, but that's all I've done so far.

My parents often compare my son who is 8 with my brother, noting similar behaviors at the same age. My brother, struggling with bipolar disorder, experiences highs of intelligence and fun, but also severe lows where he perceives loved ones as enemies. Previously resorting to drugs to self medicate , he now turns to excessive exercise, which somewhat helps but doesn't fully alleviate his distorted perceptions.

My son shows similar tendencies. Today, during a low mood, he fixated on past incidents where he felt wronged. For instance, he recalls a moment four years ago when his cousin jokingly called him a 'demon' while calling his sister an 'angel’, and I laughed '. , he dwells on these memories during his depressive phases like a broken record, and can’t drop it, he brings up past grievances even going as far as stating how another cousin woke him up at 7am playing the piano once. He fixates on negative memories and can’t seem to get out of this victim mindset. During these phases he will bring up every single wrong thing anyone has done to him in the past five years, and he is often totally mistaken about every situation. He brings up his sister calling a poopy face but doesn’t bring up how he poked, and kicked his sister. He brings up the extra chores he has to do all the time without stating how he earned the extra chores. Each time, I describe the situation and give him a chore.

In his depressive state he does not follow instructions, often sabotages his sisters work, and hurts others. Today, he ruined his math test by scribbling it all out, made loud noises during sisters test and hid all of his sisters toys while he was supposed to do his extra He spent the entire day complaining and earning extra chores, and picking on others. He earned the rule of 3, but had a difficult time actually doing the work.

I’ve remained calm, and focused on describing the situation and giving these consequences, but I can’t help get wrapped up in his misconceptions about reality. How can someone remember things so incorrectly?

I’m personally against medication, but if he does have bipolar disorder what if he self medicated with drugs, alcohol or sex? How can I not repeat my parents mistakes? Is it important to get a diagnosis? I’m afraid a diagnosis will hurt his future potential and employability in certain jobs. I do not want to deprive him of medication that he might need because of my personal biases but I also don’t want him to rely on drugs to feel normal.

Hello. We have homeschool commitments on Wednesday mornings and so I often cannot participate in these calls, but I try very hard to listen if I can.

My question is about the Family Economy and the Family Standard. We attended the 3 day online class, own the book, and have Deep Dive, but we are STILL confused. Sad, I know. We have hosted international students and are licensed foster parents so these questions are a part of what they ask us to establish. We are having a hard time knowing what should go where, if at all. Where do basic house rules go….like: 1) If you open it, close it. 2) If you turn it on, turn it off? Where would you put hygiene rules, like kids 13+ need to shower 5 times a week and use deodorant? Where would you put all devices need to be docked in such-and-such a place from 10pm-7am? Rules about asking for transportation or going out with friends? Where would you put rules about getting chores and school done? What about practicing an instrument or doing sports homework? We also have a printer that we have family rules about and then we have 3 purchase dates a year when youth can use their money to make purchases and tithe so that they think purchases through and budget wisely. Where would this go? We could really use some clarification on what goes where. I do have a copy of your Family Standard in Deep Dive and used it but, then when I went to the Family Economy there was stuff that was not in either location and then I was not sure where it should go? Thank you so much. My husband and I are volleying the answers back and forth and the rough draft has so many arrows and red marks that it looks like maybe it could be a draft of a bad piece of legislation after it crosses your desk? Haha.

Our child is in preschool (just turned 5). His teacher is willing to give us a report of how well he is listening, and we specifically asked to report incidents of if she has to ask him more than once to do XYZ. Should he earn consequences for not following instructions at school? Or is this too much helicoptering and not allowing him to practice SG outside of the home?

Hi Nicholene!

I really enjoyed the three day parenting mastery course. Unfortunately I missed the last four hours because of a family wedding we had scheduled. It seemed like right before I had to leave, it was really getting going into the part that I feel we are missing the most in our family (dealing with our 16-year-old son who seems chronically out of instructional control). We are just scratching the surface and I am just trying to start getting better at the rule of three. Also, I have to mention, since my wife and kids are not on board with this “new parenting of dad“, we have not done a family vision with everyone participating yet, and pre-teaching has been just started to get sprinkled in. It seems extremely difficult to get everyone to agree and so I’m trying my best to deal with situations as they come, and pre-teach (or POST teach at the moments).

My question is:
If our oldest seems to be taking the rule of three and pre-teaching on as a power struggle, and remains defiant and unwilling to follow ANY instructions, is it supposed to be that you continue to keep trying every 15 minutes and add consequences on top of the prior consequences? If so, does this make it spiral “out of control“ where 24 hours loss of privilege becomes five or seven days, or if not, how would you expect an oppositional and defiant youth to eventually get to point where they see it’s in their best interest to simply follow the simple instructions of breathing, or any other simple instruction that you are giving them? Thank you!

Hello Nicholeen:

I'm so glad to join the class, and this is my first question and first meeting. The most pressing situation that we are facing is the challenge with homeschooling our 10-year-old son. This is the third year we homeschool him. In the past three years, I've been emphasis on training him about obedient and discipline But it seems my efforts are going nowhere. I feel he's growing more disobedient. Most of the times, it's been a struggle to get him on doing any of the subjects, he either says no, running around, stalling, doing all kinds of body movement, climbing up and down the couch. Sometimes he's just intentionally trying to irritate me. I feel frustrated and disrespected and usually responded with yelling, demanding, or turning away angry and ignore him. I felt so much a failure. I felt I put in so much effort but it's not appreciated and in-efficient. We can only finish half of what I plan to do everyday. I'm still working full time, the time to teach is limited, and most of the time is wasted in dealing with misbehavior. I must be doing something wrong, I'm type A person, I've always been a good student, I can't understand why somebody does not want to learn. My son is very creative, he's only interested in the things he's interested, he'd doing all that the whole day, but his interest would change, right now, it's Lego every minute, in his mind. As you can see, he has ADD as doctor diagnosed, although I don't want to label him, his behavior has posed a lot of stress in my life.

On the other hand, my husband claims he's willing to listen to him. My husband is his type, creative but scattered, very loose time management or organization. When the day my husband is at home to teach, he's pretty much free roaming, even not able to feed him 3 meals on time. He always criticize me for stressing out too much, he'd always say: "He'll survive, nothing wrong with flipping burgers." But I just can't let go, I feel this is my job.

You can probably see, there's problem with our marriage relationship too, with the two different types of personalities, we had constant argument.

I'd appreciate any of your insight, maybe you'd say that why I need this class. LOL.

Thank you, Looking forward to joining the meeting tomorrow.