I think your observation about the time might be right on the money. See if you can weave that insight into a conversation and ask your daughter if she would like to set up “special time”. That’s a time where you both pick something to do together alone. Not the normal stuff that you would do anyway, but something just slightly different. Like painting toe nails, or taking a slow walk through the neighborhood, or making cookies for a neighbor. Something that is more about connection than the real activity.

Over the next 4 weeks I will be talking about communication and building more solid relationships with kids. No matter how well we get along, it is always a good idea to know what skills are available to us as parents. This week, create that roadmap, get really clear about where you are and where you want to be. Use all the tools you have today and then we will begin filling in the “distance between” over the next few weeks.

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. It is so appreciated.

Vicki

Kristin - you hit your stride. I could feel it in your post about the Roadmap. You’ve got the rhythm. It’s like a wave, a song, a dance. It’s life itself. This rhythm you tap into that carries you along, blissfully. It’s yours now. It is yours to claim. Will you get out of rhythm - OH YEAH - but it will never matter again, because you KNOW it now. Regrouping will be easy. Can you IMAGINE your life in a few years with these kids. My God! It is just tooooo good.

Koo Koo, you get your own replay so stay tuned. Good stuff. Thank you so much for sharing, for sticking with this. It will so pay off over the years. So exciting. Thank you all for taking a chance with this program. Now lets tell the world. Such happy babies we will have.

The button pushing comes into play when the complaints turn into amped up drama. The drama is not necessarily tied to the complaining or our lack of response to it. It’s just that often times when she feels like she is not getting the response she wants or is feeling powerless she spins herself into hysterical fits. We’ve not overreacted (lately anyway) and then talked with her the next day, having her brainstorm on ways she can express herself the next time in a way that other people can hear and understand her. These fits do not happen that often (maybe once a month) but they are pretty intense when they do happen. They can go on for 30 minutes or more.

In general, we try to engage her with positive attention - at the dinner table we ask how her day was at school, who she played with, and what her favorite activity of the day. She often asks to help make dinner and we always find a way to involve her. She is very willing, even enthusiastic, with most of her family contributions - vacuuming, cleaning toilets, watering plants. She is even starting to ask if she can help do the laundry.

The one thing we are thinking is an issue is that she does not get as much time at home as her almost-7 year old brother. Because of school times, he gets about 2 hours more at home each day than she does. It may not be that she compares herself with him, it’s just that she is not getting the time she wants.

So we think the escalation may come from the fact that when we ignore her complaints she is getting even less of the time she wants with us. Maybe there was too much coddling in the past and we are just paying the price for it now, but something does not feel right in the way we are trying to deal with things.

We’d love to hear your thoughts/suggestions on how to build a road map to a household with more productive communication.

My roadmap for bedtime:
ME: Starting place: Weakness: distracted and impatient, tired
FI: Starting place: receptive, likes to help, enjoys being independent and capable, doesn’t like having choices made for her, minor tantrum every bedtime
END POINT:
ME: present, strong and centered (even if tired) - I’d say connected
FI: enjoys being part of our family rhythm, makes healthy choices
GOAL: have one peaceful bedtime
PLAN: read books about bedtime (one book is parent’s choice…if need to read it at the dinner table, can do that…or in the morning…or out loud while she’s playing)…talk more about sleepiness, about how much I value sleeping and why…ask Fiora how sleepy she is to practice her noticing it (from 1 to 10, though this is dicey, she doesn’t have a great grasp on numbers yet)…practice diffierent lullabies, let her pick one…