This is what I took in from the Royal Parenting/Graceful Mothering conference call I was in on. Some of these are coupled in with ideas from
@PeaceLover as I believe she does a great job as an ex teacher in assigning rewards and consequences and necessary. Her baby is a pampered, compassionate, UE princess at an early age hahaha. Some of these notes are not exactly from Ro but have come from conversations when discussing ideas from Ro. Feel free to correct and add to it as you see fit.
FIRST OF ALL THE MAIN THING IS TO NEVER SPANK YOUR CHILD lol. Royal kids are not spanked and why should yours. She believes it's heavily rooted in slavery times. We make fun of yt people never spanking their child, but this is possibly a reason. However, they don't discipline very well. YOU HAVE to discipline your child. And this may have to occur once every five minutes. It's very necessary and once you start, you won't have to do as much.
1. Let’s say your child steals someone’s toys. Use your sing song voice. You say, “Hunny, can you bring me your favorite toys?” Put them in a bag and put them in the car. With your child, donate the toys to the less fortunate (Salvation Army or Gateway). Tell your child that we are giving away toys because they DECIDED to take someone else’s toys and they need to understand how it feels to take away a toy that someone else loves. This is a logical consequence backed up with an explanation. They don’t want their toys given away in the future? Well they can CHOOSE not to steal others toys.
2. Same thing with cleaning up. You explain to them that toys belong in the correct spot. If they are left on the floor, this tells mommy and daddy that the child has too many toys. Therefore, they will be thrown away or donated to others. Remind them, explain, and give a logical consequence.
3. Let’s say your child is acting ungrateful and does not like the toys someone gave her/him for a birthday party. Don’t allow her to have any toys during that time. Take them all away. Let her earn them back by saying thank you to the people who gave them the presents. Stay firm on this.
4. Let’s say you’re going trick or treating. One child refuses to say thank you each time they receive candy. Make the kids have compassion and say thank you. If that child doesn’t say thank you…they don’t get the candy. Simple. Explain to them they can earn the candy back by saying thank you to each person that gave them candy. If not, they earn the logical consequence of having no candy.
5. Let’s say your child breaks a lamp. Let’s say you give them $2 a week to buy a dollar toy at Dollar Tree or Dollar General. Tell them they don’t get their weekly toy because you have to use that money to buy a lamp. Let them see you buy a new lamp. They will be more careful the next time. Explain why you are doing this and assign a logical consequence.
6. Let’s say your child is a baby and is into something they shouldn’t play with. Explain to them why you don’t want them to play with it. Redirect them and give them a toy that they CAN play with. Focus on what you want them to do not what you don’t want them to do.
7. Let’s say your child cannot stay awake at school. They can lose their late bedtime and have it dialed back 30 minutes or more until they can learn to stay awake during school. Explain why their bedtime is being modified and assign a logical consequence.
8. Have a set system. If they get in trouble at school let’s say (yellow light)….no TV and No Ipad. If they get in BIG trouble (let’s say red light) no tv, ipad, dessert, and etc. They can earn it back by having good behavior the next day.
9. Let’s say they keep eating food in their room. Take away their privilege to eat snacks in their room/house. Lol Be petty. Eat YOUR snacks in your room/house. If they look sad, explain to them that you have earned the privilege to eat wherever because you know to clean up behind yourself. When they decide to do the same, they may have the privilege back. (Ro’s point is to let them earn privileges back. They want their toys? Be appreciative. They don’t want their toys thrown away? Put them away and don’t steal. They want to eat in their room? Put the food wrappers away. Let them earn their rewards. Everything, all of their niceties in life are rewards.
10. Don’t make girls man up or boys woman up. Have feminine chores and masculine chores. When boys have a dirty room…don’t make them clean up. This is feminine. Instead don’t get mad…get sad. Tell them they make mommy really really sad when she has to clean up after them. Take away toys (many of us have too much stuff anyway) or do whatever, but make life easy for you. Don’t make the boy clean though.
11. Feminine chores for little girls: organization, cooking, cleaning, nurturing, adding playfulness to the family.
12. Masculine Chores: Cut the grass/trim hedges, take trash out, checking all
smoke detectors for dead batteries (protection), Killing spiders or bugs, Changing light bulbs, Plunging if capable, basically anything that teaches them to protect and provide for their future wife.
13. Ignore or redirect Bad Behavior. Focus ONLY on good behavior.
14. Have a naughty chair. Let’s say the toddler hits mommy. The child must sit in the chair until they apologize and agree to not continue to do what put them in the chair. Every time they get up from the chair, you HAVE to be consistent as a wife and put them back in the chair. This is why it is important to decide in Marriage Negotiations who will be the house manager. The house manager usually tends to discipline and in early years this will probably be the wife because she is around the kids more.
15. Children need to be redirected or corrected about once every five minutes. Accept this.
16. Give them choices that really are guided by you. Let’s say u have two outfits you don’t mind them wearing to school. “Would you like to wear Outfit A or Outfit B?” They think they are in control but they are not. Both outfits are picked by you.
17. Another example of this: Baby, this restaurant has kids meals of chicken tenders or hamburgers. Which would you like? Then urge him to tell the waiter what he would like. This trains him to make up his own mind and hopefully gets him out of the habit of saying, “I don’t know. What do you want to do?” when on a date. LOL
18. Teach them how to think on their own. Son, you have to go to school tomorrow. What do you need to do to ensure you are ready for school tomorrow? Give him time to think and tell you. (This may take an extensive amount of time at first.)
19. Make them listen the first time you told them to.
20. Make them keep you unstressed and look after your needs instead of thinking of themselves and their needs all day. (Example: telling your boy child that they make you sad when they don’t clean up their room. Telling your girl that it makes you sad when she hits mommy).
21. Boys: Let them pay with their own money. Let them earn money for something and let them pay for their own toys starting at 4.
22. Be firm and consistent and start disciplining early.
23. Explain why we do things often. It’s important to EXPLAIN. It is very slavery embedded to think it is disrespectful when a child asks why. Explain to them so they don’t blindly obey just any adult that may not have the same values as you. Make sure they do this politely though.
24. Create family heirlooms, traditions, and rites of passages to be passed down: cookbooks, land, and etc.
25. Don’t encourage kids to get student loans. The debt traps them in poverty. If they go to college they should be able to go for free or not at all. They are going for the experience not just to say they went to college and make a bill to pay for years to come. Keep them free! If they go to college, it should be for free with grants, scholarships, and etc. NO LOANS.
26. Be Available- Play with your kids and don’t neglect their need for you.
27. Help develop your boy so they have multiple streams of income: mowing grass, fixing houses, flipping cars, stock investments, plumbing, electrical work, and etc.
28. Let boys have a truck as first car. This first mode of transportation being a truck ensures that a) A truck only has two seats so no moochers will live off of him trying to catch a ride. b) It is a status symbol and an unspoken symbol of masculinity c) It will allow him to always have a means to make money. He can carry a lawn mower, tools, and more in his truck. He can also charge for hauling materials.
29. Taking things from a child is NOT emotional cruelty! Wow, how materialistic you've shown yourselves to be, if you believe this.
30. No gift or money spent is more valuable than the proper upbringing of your child as a stellar adult, with compassion for people NOT higher value of things.
31. If you tell your child in advance that certain bad behavior will cause you to throw away gifts, and they do that behavior, there's absolutely nothing wrong with throwing away those gifts. They were warned and they have DECIDED to accept the natural consequence.
32. Material items are NOT needed to make your child feel loved.
33. If you spend 1 million dollars on a gift & taking it back or throwing it out, will teach your child a valuable lesson, choosing to give them the gift is BAD PARENTING.
34. Tell your child in advance that if they don't show genuine appreciation for a gift, you're taking it back, and not giving gifts the next event...THEN DO EXACTLY THAT!
35. In the wise words of my father, "It takes balls to be a good parent."
36. Brats or ill mannered children do NOT deserve or need ONE SINGLE GIFT! Give them one thing, and you deserve a bratty, disrespectful year.
37. Example: When at your child’s birthday party, let’s say your child says I don’t like this gift. I really wanted xyz and their grandmother gave them this gift. You should say, “In this family we are appreciative of our gifts. Because of this, we say Thank You and MEAN IT for every gift we receive. However, saying thank you is a CHOICE. If you CHOOSE not to say thank you this is your CHOICE but you have CHOSEN not to receive ANY gifts.”
38. Imagine your child's life at 5, 10, 15, 30, 40 and etc. they stay a child for 18 years but an adult for the rest of their lives. How do you plan their lives to be? Are you taking steps to get them towards this point.
39. As it relates to boys and letting them struggle by making them figure it out… REMEMBER doing NOTHING is doing SOMETHING. You must give him room to figure it out on his own.
40. Set boundaries, non-negotiables, and routines and stick to them. Mine for my house include: Bedtime at 8:30. 30 Minutes of TV/Ipad time a day. Dinner/Breakfast at the table and not all around the house. Manners are essential (Say please, thank you, No Mam and Yes mam). Laundry/Ironing is done on Sunday. I cook on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The other days are freebie days. Fridays we have family night where we go out to eat. I pack my child’s bookbag/diaper bag every night so we are ready for the next morning with ease. Routines are predictable for the family and give them some sense of comfort.
41. Pressure makes diamonds. Don’t give your boy money. Instead, give them opportunities to make money and give them the choice to do it or not. He needs $100? Well the guy down the street needs his lawn cut. You can use our lawn mower and make the money this way. Don’t GIVE him the money for things other than needs. Pressure makes him grow into a man by developing his leadership. Think of all the lessons here: perseverance, talking to people correctly, entrepreneurship, meeting goals.
42. Remember your voice is essential too. Talk in a sing-song voice with your children.
It's the little things that tell me this stuff is working.
