Peace begins in the hearts of 4-year-olds

I received this beautiful story through a positive discipline e-mail list today. It's written by the nanny of a 4 year-old & her younger brother (I'm not sure of his exact age.)

I wanted to share an event that just happened today.  We have been  worried about the fighting between Isla and Tate for awhile. 

Lately it has  been both hitting each other.  Needless to say, we were trying our best to figure out a good way to resolve the issue.  We would ask Isla what else we could do, what would be the best way to tell Tate something, and so on.  With Tate we  would ask him to show us how he can be gentle and to use his words.  After almost a year of them hitting each other today we had a HUGE breakthrough!!

  

Isla was playing with her baby doll and Tate's truck. Tate continued  to pull her doll out of the truck.  Isla said very politely,

 "Tate please stop  that, I don't like that."  Which I was very happy about, but then while  Isla had her back to him, he hit her (very hard on the back).  She was about to cry, and also appeared to be getting angry.  Now this where the most amazing thing happened.  She turned around and asked Tate if he would like a hug.  A HUG ~ !!  Tate took the hug and then turned away and  played with

something else.  THIS WAS AMAZING ~ !!  It feels so  wonderful to see how Isla has grown so much and was able to stop herself and  handle herself so very well. 

I was shocked. I then said to Isla that it seemed like a  wonderful idea to give Tate a hug, that he seemed to just have wanted her  attention.  Isla then said, "Yeah, Tate wanted me to play with him, but I  was doing something else, so I gave him a hug and now he can play by himself."  AMAZING ~ !!  

Super Strokes

a quote

 "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."   -Alfred Adler 

encouragement = love

like a plant
absorbing the sun's light
and metabolizing it into energy;

beings
absorb love in the form of encouragement
and we grow stronger,
radiating that energy back into the universe

Strawberries have lots of seeds & they are delicious too

"Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds."

- Norman Vincent Peale

Taking it a step further:  if you feed your kids seedless fruit, they can't grow their own solutions. If you don't allow them to harvest their own problems, they will rely on you (or others) for fruit indefinitely.

Law of Attraction Parenting

Well, someone's gone and written about it! http://www.ultimateparenting.com/the_secret_parenting.html

If it seems that there isn't a solution, you have not yet identified the problem

And once you identify the problem, you can then brainstorm about
different potential solutions. The barrier to using this tool is the
brick wall, named "fear." If we dismantle this wall, make "solution
finding" non-threatening, we can shift the paradigm from PROBLEM
SOLVING, to SOLUTION FINDING.

March Full Moon

The full moon Fairy is leaving us each a packet of 3 sunflower seeds tonight. The Sunflower shares its healing properties with the Sun, offering optimism and light. It is an uplifting remedy that boosts self-value. Sunflower possesses warming and compassionate healing properties.

Sibling Special Time

At our Special Time this week, Aidan asked to talk about Cameron. I
was thrilled, because I wanted to talk about sibling rivalry with
Aidan. He talked about how Cameron is always bugging him. I asked him
some questions and we discovered that Cameron was operating under the
mistaken goal that he's only important (to Aidan) if Aidan pays
attention to him. Aidan agreed to have 9 minutes of Special Time each
day with Cameron to see if that helps. It's been going great. They
more often than not have ended up playing together for hours and
Aidan isolates himself on the computer much less.

Fairies

After dinner tonight, the boys & I went out in the back yard. I cut
the grass while they played with each other. They played with a giant
frisbee that I got at goodwill this afternoon. Then they played with
trucks in the dirt - there was some story going on and they had a
mission. I left two small hills in the back yard with long grass on
it. The boys decided to use them as forts or islands.

We are leaving a strip of our back garden wild to be a Fairy Realm.
Aidan asked me tonight, "What do Fairies like? How can we make them
want to come live here with us. On the spot, I came up with the
following answer: "Fairies like flowers. They like kids. They
especially like love." Aidan responded that we have lots of flowers
in the garden. And I followed that we have kids, too. Then I said
that we have lots of love too, and the Fairies can feel that." Aidan
reflected that we will probably have a lot of Fairies living here.

When you feel like you want to *POP* . . . Blow Bubbles!

It was Monday evening and I had been away from home since morning. The kids had returned from a weekend at their dad's house late Sunday evening, so they really missed spending time with me. When I returned home at 5 PM, Aidan (6) was just beginning a board game with the sitter. Both kids were excited to see me and Cameron (3) was happy to have me to himself for a while.

Once the sitter left, however, the boys began to fight with each other. They were each clamoring for my undivided attention and they would kick and hit each other to get it.

I decided to beat it and breathe. I went to my room and locked the door. The boys were very upset. I opened the door to the patio off my bedroom and went outside. I sat in the sun and marveled at the beauty of the late afternoon. I breathed.

The boys were yelling and shouting, but it gradually faded away. They began to laugh together and play a game together. The game involved a small mess, but as I listened, it sounded as if they were really enjoying it and feeling connected to each other.

After a while, I opened my door. We cleaned up the mess together. Aidan told me he still felt angry. We talked about using the "breathing tool" from his toolbox, but he said it wasn't working and besides the toolbox is only to use at school. I had an idea.

I went to the drawer where I had seen bubbles the a few days ago. We went outside and blew bubbles. I asked him to take in a big breath and then blow all the "angries" out and put them in the bubbles. Then we ran around popping them and watching some float away over the fence and house.

Both kids loved it. Aidan cheered up considerably. He kept saying that he still felt a little angry, and he wanted to keep at the bubbles. After a while, he said he was done. He didn't feel angry anymore. We went inside and continued with our evening peacefully.