Creative Parenting

I have been at my wits end with my kids fighting and not minding...anyone else been there? Ha!! Monday night Phil took Olivia to gymnastics and I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner. Parker and Easton are in the other part of the house and I suddenly hear loud banging, screams, yelling and cries (honestly these are very normal sounds at our house and Phil and I don't typically go running to check them out). I holler at the boys to come tell me what's going on but I guess I really wasn't really hearing what they were saying, I was just trying to calm myself down so I didn't attack either one of them the way I'm certain a mama bear would attack her cubs if they acted like my children do. Well, I was proud of myself because in a very short time I was able to calm down and I even came up with a pretty good discipline for them.

I told them to stand in the middle of the kitchen, face each other, and hug for five minutes. If they said anything ugly to each other or let go I was adding minutes. I only had to add one minute but by the end of it they were actually laughing. Actually the punishment was right up Parker's ally, he tends to be the pesterer of the family and he got a kick of getting to hang on Easton for six minutes...poor Easton.