Week 1 Questions: Introduction – Survive and Thrive

1. How often do you find you find yourself just trying to survive moments in parenting? “Estimated: 3-5 times a day.”

2. What are your “go to“ survival techniques? “For non-stop screaming the room AKA prison (happens once every other week or so) until we both calm down enough to talk, if I feel like hitting my daughter her room (happens once a month or so when she hurts her tiny baby brother) until I calm down, for violations of known rules her room or prior punishment such as take away item for the day onto fridge if she hit someone with it – then we talk on her bed about the family value that was violated by the behavior, what I want to see and ask if she understands, yelling is just a failure that happens when I am overwhelmed once every other week or so, threatening happens in public where I want to let her stay somewhere fun like school or the library, but she is breaking rules such as running far away in the parking lot after other kids, running in hallways where it is not allowed ext. Consequences are not called consequences, we refer to them as “if,” “then” and choices, (ICC: inform, consequence, choice) if you do not share the doll with the little girl who is crying, then I will not get you shave ice after school. I do a lot of positive rewards with affection, words of affirmation and food treats, but I don’t consider that to be “bribes”, I consider it positive incentives and I think it’s been a good thing for us. Ex we practice languages in the morning, she tries to say new words and gets m&m mini’s, I think it’s the attention she likes the best, but I do give candy. She gets paid for helping with laundry and helping protect her brother, $4/week, I don’t think of that as a bribe, living in a country where workers get paid, I think it’s modeling the world (imperfect although it is) we live in.”

3. On page viii it asks what you really want for your children? What qualities do you hope they develop and carry into their adult lives? “Emotional control, resilience, empathy, eq, leadership, boundaries, integrity, ethics.”

How much time do you spend intentionally developing these qualities?
“Emotional control 1-5 hours/week, resilience 10 min-3 hours/day, empathy 3 hours/week, eq 1 hour/week, leadership 10 min-2 hours/week, boundaries 3 hours/week, integrity 7 hours/week, ethics 4 hours/week.”

4. What skills and abilities do you think will be easy to develop in these survive and thrive moments? Which will take more effort? Independence? Problem solving? Compassion? Empathy? Anything else? “None are easy, it was extremely hard to do this in real life.”