Post-It Style Parenting

Excerpt : I love 3M's Post-It Notes, and keep a stack of colorful pads always near at hand. They're good for flagging edits on a manuscript, for communicating with others in my home when we're busy living

I love 3M's Post-It Notes, and keep a stack of colorful pads always near at hand. They're good for flagging edits on a manuscript, for communicating with others in my home when we're busy living separately during the day, or for jotting down phone numbers, grocery lists, and sudden bursts of inspiration for story-writing. But the best use I ever found for them was when my son was in elementary school. I discovered they were great parenting tools.

It was driving me crazy that the sink in the bathroom always looked atrocious every time I walked in there. It looked great every time I stepped out of the washroom, but rarely did it look so pristine on entering. There was usually some crusty feeling stuff on the taps and not only did the grunge drive me crazy, but having to remind my son about it time and time again, nearly drove me insane. I'd

“ Black Belt Parenting-The Art of Raising your Child for Success" Also see : 12 Parenting Tips For Parents In a child's education an important factor is the parents' expertise for the "job". No one is born holding all the knowledge, but we can learn and understand things from books or take the advice of qualified persons. Amongst the commandments...read more Parenting technique to banish tantrums Henri Joyce teaches harrassed parents how to banish tantrums by helping children to deal with their emotions. The traffic light is a simple yet effective toddler calming technique when used in conjunction with the stress management method of...read more

wash the crust off, rewash my hands, then turn to dry my hands on a towel, only to find the towel marred with whatever my son had supposedly washed off his hands earlier.

It was frustrating and annoying. No matter how many times I told him to clean the taps off and use towels for drying his hands, not for wiping dirt on them, the bathroom was still like that several times a day. I told him he'd lose a day on the computer every time I found it like that. It didn't work. He lost the computer for a week and nothing changed, and even when he was off the computer, it was still like that. He was getting used to hearing his name pronounced in a way only an irate mother can pronounce her child's name (we're quite skilled at drawing out the syllables for effectiveness).

Or he'd be playing online or off, and as soon as he heard

Also see : Grace-full Parenting – Committing to Nurturing the Souls of our Children Grace-full Parenting – Committing to Nurturing the Souls of our Children Author Interview with Thomas B. Haller, M.Div., MSW, DST, The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose By Lisa M. Hendey Prior to the birth of our children, mothers frequently...read more Parenting Rules for Permissive Parents: Use These with Caution I remember a childless couple who slept with their dogs. They were clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Yet every night their dogs crawled into bed with them. During the day the two black labs ran through the house, climbed on the...read more

the tone of his name in that way, he'd say, "Oh, sorry, sorry," rush to take care of it and get back to playing with his toys, or hop back on the computer chair and tap away at the keyboard.

Since the computer was his favorite "toy," I set up a schedule of times he was allowed to be on it, and would take away privileges a half hour at a time. That didn't work. He was fine with losing his comp time because he'd simply go draw pictures or play with his toys. Still the grungy bathroom problem continued.

I was getting sick and tired of being upset with him over such a trivial thing, yet I hated that it seemed my hands got messier trying to clean them, than they had been before I started!

Finally, I grabbed a brightly colored Post-It, and wrote on it, "Ha Ha! I am dirt and grime and I don't want you to play on the computer!

Also see : Parenting - The Irrational Vocation There are some grounds to assume that a cognitive dissonance is involved in feeling that children are more a satisfaction than a nuisance. Why do people bother with parenting? It is time consuming, exhausting, strains otherwise pleasurable...read more The Challenges of Single Parenting Having worked with parents for the last 35 years and written books on parenting and relationships, I’ve discovered that one of the greatest challenges for us as parents is to be loving role-models for our children, showing our children through...read more

I play dirty! Ha ha ha ha!" I added a little picture of a grime spot with a mean smile. I stuck that one on the mirror in front of the tap. I took another Post-It of a different color and wrote "I am NOT a back-up washcloth! I'm a towel. Please use me to dry clean hands. Don't clean them on me! I drew a little crying towel.

It was working! No more grime, no more leftovers on the towel . . . but the other towel was then being used for cleaning. I stuck up another note and wrote "I'm a towel too! Please no dirt and grime!" I drew a trembling towel with a grime monster about to devour him.

After that day, the bathroom was always nice and clean and the towels lasted on the rack more than half a day, and I didn't have to say a word.

Neither of us mentioned the notes until about a week later when I put a little reminder note

Also see : 10 Parenting Tips For All New Parents If you are like most parents, you probably want to raise healthy, smart kids. You may already have some ideas on how to achieve this. Here are some parenting tips that will help parents ensure their children develop to their full potential....read more Parenting Tip - How to Use Your Children to Get Things Done If you have children over the age of eight or nine years old, here is a parenting tip on how you can get things done quicker and easier with the help of your kids. It will cut your chores in half and give your children the opportunity to learn...read more

up for myself in the kitchen (which I do frequently) and he said, "You're sure into notes these days huh? Like in the bathroom?"

"Yes," I replied. "I saw those, too. But I'm not a towel, and I'm not dirt and grime, so please don't think they're from me." He laughed, gave me a hug and said "You're such a cool mom." I took the compliment for the rare wonder it was, and we never brought the notes up again.

For a few years more, the Post-Its Patrol kept our home in tip-top shape: over a coat rack, "Please may I hold your coat for you?"; above the laundry hamper, "I'm not full yet, more clothes please!" The notes were all over the house until my son was able to remember certain chores and responsibilities without reminders. Even his cousins and friends abided by the Post-It Patrol's rules. Best of all, I didn't have to nag my son

Also see : John Wayne vs. Petticoat Approach To Parenting My husband and I have different views on parenting. He likes to recount a scene from an old John Wayne movie, "Hondo", where a young boy doesn't know how to swim. Raised solely by his mother who was never able to teach him, the boy was afraid of...read more Parenting Teens - Getting Your Point Across Giving advice to a teenager is very easy; getting a teenager to take that advice is another matter altogether. It's not only a case of the advice 'falling on deaf ears', sometimes the teenager seems to go deliberately out of their way to do the...read more

for those things to get done.

Now that my son is a teenager, the notes are gone and the walls around here are a lot less colorful, but it's a fair trade for raising my son in a home where yelling is rare, arguments are discussed in respectful tones and chores are actually done. I don't know if I could have managed it without a little help from my Post-Its.

About the author:

Kim-Marie Ward is a freelance editor of both non-fiction books and fiction novels, a ghostwriter, and has written several articles for various ezines and newsletters (online and in print). She's an active member on http://www.Writing.Com, an online community for Writers. Stop by and visit her portfolio at: Kim-Marie on Writing.Com.

Revolutionary 'Mom Has Fun' Parenting Method For Raising Happy Well-Behaved Kids!

More Parenting Articles

Practical Parenting Advice | sitemap
copyright www.parentingadvices.com 2006
Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/parentin/public_html/php/footer.php on line 19

Warning: include(http://www.ultrasonicspabath.com/adsenselogger.inc) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/parentin/public_html/php/footer.php on line 19

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.ultrasonicspabath.com/adsenselogger.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/parentin/public_html/php/footer.php on line 19