Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Where the Wind Blows...

That's how I'd been feeling lately. Tossed along the shore of my kid's whims and fancies, putting out fires with a blow-torch and a box of matches. Believe you me, I've done A LOT of praying(lamenting mostly) over the whole situation and I just couldn't understand WHY my kids were driving me batty and causing me to twitch uncontrolably by nightfall. My dear, dear husband would slowly open the front door in the evening, peer suspiciously around, and when spotted, would offer to run ANY errands that he could think of. How very thoughtful of him. Faced, or I should say plagued, with thoughts of running away, I needed a better idea. I needed an intervention. My friend Kathy , mentioned something about "Tomato Staking" a few months ago and again last week. Now, I'm all for tying the little buggers up but I didn't see how that would help me much. Really, if I wanted to be honest and access my often unused "long term memory", I'd have to say that my friend Kate mentioned this "tomato staking" a few YEARS ago when I was desperate after Evie didn't sleep for 3 years straight and I was going insane. Finally, I went to the website Raising Godly Tomatoes and began to read. What a blessing this website has been to me. It has allowed me to see that expecting my kids to listen to me, or in other circles, to "behave" is o.k. I'm not being a mean mommy, I'm teaching them and well, that's what I've been trying to do ever since I became a mommy.

After a full week of training, I have to say that I have different children. I no longer have tornadoes, I have wildflowers. What a blessing and an answer to prayer.

Blessings,


5 comments:

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

So glad this is going well for you, Lisa.

Jodi said...

Good that you're seeing improvement so soon.

I always picture a child in a metal tomato cage when I hear the tomato stalking term which is funny enough. I see you have come up with an even better solution of attaching the children to the table with s'mores (above). LOL Just kidding!

I had to do a variation of this with Colin this year at homeschool co-op because he would get into trouble without even trying it seemed. I told him my job was to be his co-op buddy and we would stick together. It worked really well and by mid way through the year I no longer needed to have him close all the time. I think he just didn't know how to behave in that particular situation.

Donna said...

I hadn't heard of this. Have been enjoying the site. Thanks for the info. :)

Lisa in Jax said...

LOL! The smores were a good solution.lol

Yep, that's what we're doing Jodi. Just keeping them close and making sure that they know the rules. It's really helping and I'm seeing good results.

Laura said...

Thanks for posting about your struggles. I will take a look at the website.