Talking to children like adults

So today's goal was to talk to my 5 and 6 year old like they are adults. The idea is that you should respect them and give them the same respect you give adults, so that they know how they should treat people.

To start, today was a surprising easy day. We skipped school, and the usual stressful morning rush, because we were going to grow strawberry picking nearby, but the farm was unexpectedly closed. So we headed to Chuck E. Cheese, cause the kids love it there, and I think it's a fun outing in the middle of the week when it's not crowded. Easy success there, just follow them around and give them tokens. Later we went to the children's science museum.  I don't think I really talked to them any differently, but I did pay more attention to them when they were talking, and I made much better eye contact. I also remembered to use yesterday's tip of noticing/commenting on helpful things they were doing.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. In fact, in reference to my first post about the 5-1 love bank thing, I think we might have a positive balance today.  I didn't loose my cool at all. I sounded exasperated and repeated myself more than I wanted to a few times, but that was it. Of course, after spending all day with the kids, by 6 I was emotionally exhausted and needed to recharge.

Oh one little failure--I was playing an arcade game when my daughter came up to get another token. She spilled them all over the floor, a total accident, and I still very exasperatingly said "Graaaace" in that long punitive tone we all have. She immediately looked sad and said sorry, and I just said "Well clean them up."  Which she did, but was still upset when she walked away. I explained that the cleaning up was just a necessary result of having had an accident, but that she was right to be upset because I had seemed mad at first, so I apologized. She got over it fairly quickly, probably because she had a token in the game.

I will probably try this one again later. I didn't really feel like I did a great job at it, though it did do what all the other ones have done and succeeded at making me a more mindful parent.

Tomorrow's goal: taken from http://www.healthunit.org/children/parents/positive_parent.htm

Clarifying directions. Make sure they understand what I am asking them to do. Make sure I have their full attention before giving directions, then have them repeat it back. Rephrase if they have difficulty understanding.

I think this will really help with my son. My daughter, as an extrovert, is constantly hanging on my every word, but my son tunes me out almost as well as his father can.