I guess it depends on how prideful and vain you are. Adam's latest creative parenting trick really through me for a loop this morning. The story goes like this....
Nate has gotten himself into a really bad habit. He wants to change his clothes at least 50 times a day. This habit has created two problems. The first is that he is often shoving dirty (ie. peed in, or frostinged on, or chocolate puddinged on) clothes back into his drawers full of clean clothes. The second problem (which is really the BIGGEST problem) is that we have continually told him he can not do this...but he continues to keep changing and shoving, changing and shoving. Yesterday the kid spent a large chunk of the morning sitting on his bed in time out....while we said things like...
"Wouldn't you like to get down and play?...Oh, it's too bad you won't mind the rules. We can't let you down if you don't mind the rules."
"Look how much fun the kids are having! They are remembering to mind the rules. You have to mind your Mom and Dad, or you can't get down and play."
"We can't ever put our dirty clothes in with our clean clothes. You always have to ask Mom before you change your clothes, she will help you."
"Mom and Dad really love you a lot. You have to mind us every time, or you can't get down and play."
He was very remorseful...and after a very long morning we let him down and he practiced minding some rules. We were hoping that it fixed the problem. Hoping. Reallllllly hoping.
Sure enough this morning (after we had refreshed his memory MANY times of the long stay on his bed the day before....and how he always had to ask Mom or Dad before he changed) the foolish chap went in his room, shut the door...and started changing and shoving, changing and shoving.
So as he always does, Adam came up with a plan. The plan had two parts. Nate would have to sit next to Adam for most of the day...and he would have to wear his pajamas for the entire day, and never get dressed in real clothes. This doesn't sound too bad now does it. The "Down Right Embarrassing" part is.....today was Sunday. And that means church. Do you want to take any of your children to church in pajamas? Well...I didn't either! In fact I even said repeatedly that I would NOT take him to church in his PJs no matter what! I admit, the "no matter what" part was a little foolish. It took me a couple of hours, but I ended up being willing to swallow my pride and vain notions of dressing my kids up cute for church, and we indeed paraded the little kid to all three meetings in his pajamas. Was it helpful? Did he even care that he was in his PJ's?
Well....you know it is sometimes difficult for me to admit, but Adam was right. Nate was pretty embarrassed to be wearing his pjs at church...and he sat on Adam's lap for the whole 3 hour block with this remorseful look on his face while Adam whispered into his ear......."I sure love you a lot Nate. I hope you will always mind Mom and Dad. I hope next week you can wear your church clothes and go to your class. I know you are going to be a good minder now." .....and so on.
Cross your fingers and your toes that the boy doesn't have a relapse tomorrow with the changing and shoving.
We put a big fat stick through the handles on his dresser.....just in case. Sometimes you've got to help success out, just a tiny bit.
