I haven’t been updating this site much recently because I have been really working on training the boys to be more obedient, with the expectation that as they grow their hearts will be obedient to God, His Word, and His will for their lives… and also to try to improve their behavior! We are making progress, slowly but steadily. Right now we are trying something called “tomato staking”, which basically involves keeping the boys next to us 100% of the time, so that we are able to see everything they are doing and can encourage or stop their behavior, as desired. When they disobey, or display a bad attitude, or do anything a godly child would not do, we correct them promptly and require them to repeat what they did in godly manner. Once they have obeyed us with a pleasant attitude, we go back to nurturing, teaching, and enjoying them as we were before. Of course we don’t always tomato-stake perfectly, but we are already beginning to see the fruits of our labor. The boys are now saying “Please”, “thank you”, “Yes, mommy”, “Yes, daddy”, and “I obey”. They are also much more helpful about putting their books and toys away, retrieving their shoes and coats when it’s time to go somewhere, not taking all the cushions off the couch all the time, and keeping their socks on their feet throughout the day. I know these things may sound trivial to you, but it’s a huge deal to us as parents! The boys are still stubborn in some areas, particularly where eating is involved, but we have faith that that they will come around in due time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 12:16 am and is filed under The Boys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.