THE 1-1 FAMILY OBJECTIVE:
To Teach Your Child To Make Their Own Good Choices At An Early Age. |
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"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." —Galatians 6:7
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“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” —Proverbs 22:6
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These two Bible verses are at the heart of the four 1-1 Family techniques. To sum them up, parents need to teach children to sow the habit of making good choices early on so they can reap a great life when they mature into adulthood. Making choices is central to how we as humans are created and operate in this world. We are granted personal sovereignty, often referred to as free will or autonomy. Autonomy, meaning "self-governed freedom," is something we all possess from birth. The aim is to guide your child in learning how to govern themselves, making good choices in each moment throughout their childhood in order to form a lasting habit. This foundation helps ensure they grow into adults who continue making wise decisions, leading to a fulfilling and extraordinary life.
Keeping Count Of Personal Boundaries
How do your children break your boundaries? Frustration often sets in when you create family rules along with good and safe boundaries to protect your child, only to have those boundaries repeatedly tested. It’s natural for children to challenge rules as they try to assert their independence and maintain a sense of control. However, it’s crucial for them to start making wise choices now, while they’re in the safe and secure environment of your home.
Here are some of the ways your child may oppose your boundaries:
Here are some of the ways your child may oppose your boundaries:
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• Completely Ignores You
• Refuses To Cooperate • Gets Angry / Defiant • Argues Constantly • Don't Accept Your No's & Yes's • Tries To Change Your Mind • Lies To You |
• Omit / Hide Truth From You
• Manipulate You • Talks Back To You • Hits / Hurts You • Runs Away From You • Yells / Screams • Throws Tantrums |
• Delays Your Requests
• Complains With You • Bargains With You • Hurts Themselves • Lies / Manipulates • Hides / Sneaks • Keeps Breaking Rules |
The Old-School “Just Listen, Or Else” Parenting Mindset
How do you discipline your child when they break your boundaries? If you've ever punished your child because they didn't "listen" to you, then you have a parenting mindset like that of billions of parents around the globe. We call this the “Just Listen, Or Else” mindset. How are you to teach your children to listen to and follow the rules unless they have a punishment or a stern consequence? Something has to be done, right? The problem is that parents use fear, threats and punishments to somehow motivate their child to listen to them instead of teaching them to make their own wise choices at an early age.
Here are some of the ways that "Just Listen, Or Else" parents discipline their children:
Here are some of the ways that "Just Listen, Or Else" parents discipline their children:
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• Put Child In Time Out
• Send Child To Room • Extra Chores For Child • Take Away Privileges • Ground Child • Spank Child |
• Yell / Raise Your Voice
• Shaming Language • Threatening Language • Early Bedtime • No Dessert • Canceling Events |
• You Suffer Through It
• Loss Of Allowance • Wash Mouth With Soap • Talk / Reason With Child • Appease / Do Nothing • Be Your Child's BFF |
Now, these "Just Listen, Or Else" tactics have worked for eons, but they only work so well, and they have several unintended consequences. 1-1 Family prefers to use fun and freedom over fear.
A New Paradigm: Parenting With Fun & Freedom
The four 1-1 Family parenting techniques are all about Parenting With Fun & Freedom and not fear, threats and punishment, which is the far inferior “Just Listen, Or Else” parenting mindset mentioned above.
Below are the four 1-1 Family parenting techniques that use fun and freedom as motivating factors to guide your child to make their own good choices and bring your family into closer 1-1 relationships.
Below are the four 1-1 Family parenting techniques that use fun and freedom as motivating factors to guide your child to make their own good choices and bring your family into closer 1-1 relationships.
The 1-1 Family Techniques
THE STOPWATCH TECHNIQUE
1 Second = 1 Minute
This is the most-used technique to motivate your child to make good choices. Whether you use a real stopwatch, your smartphone stopwatch, a counting app, or you're actually able to remember the number you left off with, you need to be recording the seconds you received every day. Every 1 second your child does not make good choices or argues with you, you get 1 minute of personal restoration time. You will calmly count out loud until they stop arguing with you.
1 Second = 1 Minute
This is the most-used technique to motivate your child to make good choices. Whether you use a real stopwatch, your smartphone stopwatch, a counting app, or you're actually able to remember the number you left off with, you need to be recording the seconds you received every day. Every 1 second your child does not make good choices or argues with you, you get 1 minute of personal restoration time. You will calmly count out loud until they stop arguing with you.
STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS:
- When your child chooses to break your boundaries, calmly approach and give an "Uh-oh!" expression. By using the simple "Uh-oh!" in a slower fashion, pausing at the hyphen (-), it can be the first warning sign for your child that he is not making a good choice at the moment. This should be a positive and melodic tone, not an ominous or threatening tone. As time goes on, the "Uh-oh!" expression will be for your child the moment that he corrects course and makes a good decision.
- Inform your child in a gentle manner that because he/she is not making good choices (aka not listening), you are going to start "Counting Minutes" and let your child know why. Example: "Jenny, I asked you to stop playing games on the iPad. I am about to start counting minutes."
- Start counting in a calm and relaxed manner. Use your child's name when counting, like so: "Johnny, one minute, Johnny two minutes, Johnny three minutes..."
- Stop counting as soon as they make a good choice (at the moment they comply with your directions - not when they complete your directive).
- Remember how many minutes you collect (use a counting app to help you if needed). You will accrue (keep adding) minutes all day and everyday, until you claim the minutes you've collected.
- Claim your minutes when you need them.
- When you claim your minutes, inform your child of their new, more limited boundaries (e.g. "Because you did not listen, you will be staying inside our home while Mommy rests for 30 minutes.")
- Start a visible timer and remind your child that if they interrupt your restoration time, you will add more minutes.
NOTE: At any time, you can offer your child "Make-Up Minutes" so they can take back time from you by doing chores and other helpful things. (see below)
THE TASK-TIMER TECHNIQUE
1 Minute = 1 Minute
This technique is a 2-step process for tasks that you give to your child. When you assign a task to your child, you use a timer to count down. If they do not accomplish the task in the time allotted, you use a stopwatch to get 1 minute for every 1 minute it takes them to complete the task.
1 Minute = 1 Minute
This technique is a 2-step process for tasks that you give to your child. When you assign a task to your child, you use a timer to count down. If they do not accomplish the task in the time allotted, you use a stopwatch to get 1 minute for every 1 minute it takes them to complete the task.
- Estimate how long a given task should take your child to accomplish, but give them an extra 5 min.
- Explain to your child what you want them to do and how much time you're giving them to accomplish the task.
- Remind your child that if they don't complete the task on time, you will add one minute to your time for each minute it takes them to finish.
- Start the timer, and don't micro-manage your child. Let them succeed or fail on their own.
- When the alarm goes off, check to see if your child accomplished their task.
- If your child did not accomplish their task, then start your smartphone's stopwatch and inform your child that you're now adding minutes and they should let you know when they complete their task so you can stop the time.
- Stop the stopwatch and record the minutes you gained (remember that it's 1 min for 1 min).
- Claim your minutes when you need them.
- When you claim your minutes, inform your child of their new, more limited boundaries (e.g. "Because you did not complete your task on time, you will be staying in our home while Mommy rests for 30 minutes.")
- Start a visible timer and remind your child that if they interrupt your restoration time, you will add more minutes.
NOTE: At any time, you can offer your child "Make-Up Minutes" so they can take back time from you by doing chores and other helpful things. (see technique below)
THE TIME-EXCHANGE TECHNIQUE
1 Minute = 1 Minute
This technique is for the times your child does something they shouldn't do and, as a result, you are required to use your time to address the issue correctly because they cannot. Whatever the time it takes you to solve the problem, you get the same amount of time, which adds to your overall time. Examples below:
1 Minute = 1 Minute
This technique is for the times your child does something they shouldn't do and, as a result, you are required to use your time to address the issue correctly because they cannot. Whatever the time it takes you to solve the problem, you get the same amount of time, which adds to your overall time. Examples below:
- Your child is late for school and misses the school bus, requiring you to stop what you're doing in order to drive him or her to school.
- Your child makes a mess doing something you've specifically asked her or him not to do, requiring you to take time to help your child clean up.
- Your child breaks something he or she was not supposed to touch, requiring you to take extra time helping your child replace or fix it.
Note: Don't solve the problem for your child if at all possible. Natural consequences require your child to take responsibility for their disobedience and mistakes. Since you're likely to take time out to address the issue, and you'll likely need to help resolve the problem in some manner, you need to exchange the time you spent.
NOTE: At any time, you can offer your child "Make-Up Minutes" so they can take back time from you by doing chores and other helpful things. (see below)
NOTE: At any time, you can offer your child "Make-Up Minutes" so they can take back time from you by doing chores and other helpful things. (see below)
THE MAKE-UP MINUTES TECHNIQUE
1 Minute = 1 Minute
While most 1-1 techniques count UP minutes, the "Make-Up Minutes" technique counts DOWN and gives minutes back to your child. When your child does something that helps you or your family, outside of what is expected of them, they can make up for the minutes they gave you. Here are some examples when you can reimburse time to your child:
1 Minute = 1 Minute
While most 1-1 techniques count UP minutes, the "Make-Up Minutes" technique counts DOWN and gives minutes back to your child. When your child does something that helps you or your family, outside of what is expected of them, they can make up for the minutes they gave you. Here are some examples when you can reimburse time to your child:
- Your child offers to help you with something that benefits you, other than the chores they are expected to do as part of the family.
- Your child decides to write a positive letter and/or draw a picture for someone to encourage them.
- Your child decides to do some extra reading or learning to earn back minutes from you, in addition to their normal reading time.
- You notice that your child has been consistently helpful to you and others and you want to reward her or him by giving more time back.
- Your child decides to teach themselves a new hobby or build something cool and creative.
- You notice that your child has been improving in his or her ability to listen to you without arguing.
Note: You can decide on whatever you want for your child to make-up minutes from you. Do things that will help you and help them. Pick things that will not involve you to assist your child, unless it brings joy to you.
Counting Minutes
Parent and Child count minutes between each other in a fun game-like situation. There are three of the four techniques whereby the Parent can capture minutes from the Child and one technique whereby the Child can recapture the minutes lost to the Parent.
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Claiming Minutes
If/when the Child gives minutes to the Parent, the Parent can claim those minutes and use the time to do something that restores their marbles (sanity). During that time of restoration, the Parent slightly reduces the Child's boundaries, but the Child can still do anything they want to do as long as they are not breaking boundaries or family rules.
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