Update on Terrible 6's

Okay... so here I am over a week later from my recent post regarding 6-year old behavior and I have to say that this past week has been MUCH better and we are, in fact, heading to Hoffman's Playland this afternoon!  Although Alex has lost his opportunity to have a chapter of Harry Potter read almost every night this week, that is the only thing he's lost each day, having no warnings or second chances given throughout the day.  This said, I think being more strict with him has paid off.  This means that he's only done, really, one thing each day that would be considered "bad behavior" (enough to warrant punishment, anyway).  The attitude that he exhibited last week has diminished substantially and our trip to the grocery store was much more successful.  

I began our trip by telling them, once we were in the parking lot, that we would not be using the car cart as we had the previous week because both of the children showed me through their behavior that they could not be trusted to use one.  I continued by telling them that if they argued with me about not using the cart, they would loose storytime that evening, but if they were good, we could get a car cart for the next trip.  They were both well-behaved for this trip and I was quite pleased with their behavior.

Of course Tuesday would have been the day for good behavior since Alex was much too lethargic to be bold due to his minor surgery.  But for the rest of the week, both Alex & Emily have played well together, sometimes going for hours of pretend play without one of them running to mommy with a problem.  I've baked a cake, gotten caught up on the laundry, and witnessed some truly wonderful sibling play time.  The major thing that I've changed in my parenting this past week has been not to give in, even the slightest, to Alex's wheelin and dealin with his punishments.  I haven't given him any second chances.  And most of the time, he doesn't even get a warning because I feel that he's old enough now and knows what good/acceptable behavior and bad/not acceptable behavior is.  The next thing that we are working on now is having respect.  We've worked on it a bit and I think the attitude has improved, but he has still raised his voice at me a couple of times  in a sort of disrespectful & "blaming" kind of tone.  I hope that my children will, throughout their lives, be respectful and kind human beings.... thus, the foundation must be laid now.