House Rules

I am slow.

I swear it takes me way longer to figure out the most obvious things.

Slade struggles to listen. Not just at home - at school too. For some reason though he listens really well on the bus, in fact he tells the other kids when they are breaking the rules. At home I feel like I am constantly telling him the same thing, he doesn't listen and he gets a timeout. It is not working. Both he and I are very frustrated most of the time.

Then a couple days ago he was telling me about something that happened on the bus and he said...

"I don't know why people get in trouble on the bus, all they have to do is follow the rules." 

So I asked him why he didn't follow the rules at home if it is so easy. He replied that he didn't think that we had rules at home. I started asking him "what about ____ rule" type questions. He said...

"Those are rules?"

Then it clicked... I haven't made the rules clear enough for him (or Madie for that matter).

So for family home evening last night we talked about rules and the importance of following them. Then we made a list of all of the rules that we wanted on our house rules list. This is what we came up with...

1. Put away the toy we had before getting a new one.

2. We don't say mean  words (Like 'hate' and 'stupid').

3. Listen the first time.

4. No fighting.

5. Always tell the truth.

6. You have to eat what you ask for.

7. No Yelling.

8. No whining.

9. No teasing.

We all agreed that if you break a rule you have to take a timeout.

This morning I heard Slade and Madie talking about the something and then I heard Madie say "no Slade that is against house rules".

 At one point Slade was fighting with me and I asked him what he was doing. He replied that he was fighting with me and breaking a house rules. I asked him what he thought needed to happen because he was breaking the house rule. He said "I guess I better take a time out then.

It is nice to not have to be the bad guy.

I am going to put the rules up on the fridge. Who knew I had to spell it out to him, I sure hope this helps.