Selfish?
April 1, 2008
Written by: Katie
Sometimes kids, adults, people are selfish. It’s a horrible habit and really not pretty. Here is Jessica being selfish. Look at what she is doing. She isn’t playing. She is just sitting and holding a bag of toys she doesn’t want anyone to play with. What a pill.
In our house all the toys are mine. The kids have few personal possessions and this cuts down significantly on issues of ownership but once in awhile someone will get the crazy idea in their head that they are more entitled to play with a toy than someone else. This, of course, is not a habit we want to encourage.
Junie has asked nicely to play with the toys that Jessica is hoarding. She says "How about this one toy here? Please?" I’m not clear about the face that Jessica is making but she says no. Why? That will forever remain one of the mysteries of child behavior.
Look at that scowl. Ok, Jessica, put the toys down. Step away.
Find yourself 3 toys and come sit with me. Sometimes I choose the toys and sometimes they go without toys depending on the attitude.
Now the lecture. You were being very rude and selfish. There is no reason you need to hold toys just so no one else can play with them. That is not fair to everyone else. I won’t allow you to act that way. You sit with me. I never say "Until you have a better attitude." or "For ten minutes."
Because it really doesn’t work that way. I am looking for a heart change. I want to see a happy countenance and good attitude. Sometimes that doesn’t happen in 10 minutes and sometimes kids will LIE to convince me that they are "happy" and "nice" enough to go play well with others. To avoid the lying I let the kids know that the decision to let them go play is entirely up to me and nothing the can say will persuade me to change my mind about their fate. This helps us to have a pleasant time together instead of doing research about far away boarding schools.
Oh look, she is happy and wonderful. I think I’ll have her play by me a little longer just to make sure all is well. She’ll be off cavorting with the general public in no time. Should she decide within 5 minutes time to misbehave again I am more than happy to repeat this process. No problem. It’s my job.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:31 am
Great post. I appreciated hearing that you don’t say “until your attitude has changed”. I can see how saying that would encourage pretending a change in heart to get out of trouble. Thanks.
I love the pictures. Is June sticking our her tongue? :-)
April 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am
So, then what do we do about the slighted child who once the selfish child is punished responds by gloating–like Junie in the pic above? :)
April 1st, 2008 at 10:52 am
I was just wondering about Junie’s tongue sticking out in the above picture, when Jessica is being called away?
In that case I believe I wouldn’t let her play with the toys either.
:)
Chas
April 1st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Geesh!! I didn’t realize Junie had done that until I edited the pics and then I meant to address it in my post. How is it that the very first comments mention it? Are you guys always so attentive and observant? Maybe I should clean my house before I take pictures.
Being that we were all having trouble not bursting into giggles the tongue was a relatively minor thing for me to notice. :) But you ladies are right. Gloating deserves the same response as being selfish. :)
April 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Discipline tactics aside…can I ask where you got those great shelves that you store all of your toys on? Those are so neat!
April 1st, 2008 at 11:12 am
I was wondering about Junie’s attitude in the picture, too! Glad you cleared that up. You could be accused of favoritism again.
Thanks for posting this - I have one child with the selfish beast and we seriously need to eliminate it!
April 1st, 2008 at 11:25 am
How do you deal with constant noise during school time. I literally have been working consisitently on this for YEARS! I would tape their mouths shut if it were not abusive! It is driving me insane.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:51 am
This has been helping my four year old lately. He seems to think everything is his and it should be his choice if his brother gets to play with something. Uh, nope. Not around here! As a result he has been restraining himself more. Maybe he doesn’t like sitting so near me? I must be boring. :)
So when you do this are your kids allowed to talk to you as long as they are not whiny or complaining? Or must they sit there quietly?
April 1st, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hi Katie,
It’s bee far to long since I’ve come over to say hello! I need to find the RSS on here and put you in my bloglines.
Loved this post! I totally agree. I don’t tell my children how long they are grounded for, how long the time with me will be for or any of that. It will all depend on their behavior.
To those who say that children need to know how long they will be restricted for, I tell them that they know it’s until they get a right attitude, and that children can wait out a set time limit without having their heart change. When you do that, nothing has been accomplished.
Abiding in the Vine!
April 1st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Am I missing something here? Was this a “staged” post and that’s why you all were having trouble keeping a straight face? I, too, had wondered why June was gloating and sticking her tongue out.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Your posts make me smile! Thank you for the encouragement to keep training.
April
April 1st, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I really enjoy being able to do this with my 2yo. They do learn to restrain themselves! :)
April 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
It looked staged to me too! I thought Junie was just trying not to laugh. :-)
April 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Katie, I REALLY appreciate you actually showing how to do these things that we so often hear about. For some reason I have a hard time putting the things I know in my head into practice. It really helps to *see* what I should be doing with Alyssa. Thank you for taking the time to do this.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Oh Katie.. I was just teasing with you. I was sure this was a ’staged’ or practice…
There needs to be an ~>insert sarcasm here<~ affixed to some things I say. ;)
Love,
Chas
April 1st, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Jessica is cute; pouting and smiling. I noticed her sister’s tongue in the picture too; I wondered where she was sitting while you corrected Jessica.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
In our house the toys belong to me and dh, too. Whenever someone says “Mine”, I say, “Um… Actually, it’s MINE!”
I really need to work on outlasting for attitude. I usually let them sit for few minutes and go instead of working on the heart change.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
ROFL!! I came to ask if Junie was sticking her tongue out and see that others beat me to it. Hilarious!! I can see what the next teaching tip will be about! :-P
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Love the training Tuesdays. It really does work so well to put them near you. My dd (7) decided to try stealing gum from the store on for size today. I caught her of course. She is not nearly as clever as she thinks she is. The real bummer is that she is leaning on her RAD ways and just doesn’t seem to care much that she did wrong. She has been in her room in “jail” since 4 pm. I served her dinner there and put her to bed. No luxuries for jail birds. Tomorrow she will do retribution for lying to me. A nice hassle chore. Hmmm! What do I need done and clean trash up in the grocery store parking lot for retribution to them. What would you do in a situation like this? Have you had to deal with stealing? Look forward to seeing that topic if you have any advice.
Blessings,
Dawn
April 4th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
“michelle said:
April 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Discipline tactics aside…can I ask where you got those great shelves that you store all of your toys on? Those are so neat! ”
DITTO!! Please share!!