Best parenting time ever

One of my dear friends told me of a story when her 8 year old was being particularly horrid. After a day of defiance, her son came up and gave her a hug and wished her happy birthday. "How sweet!" she thought, "this makes it all worth it." About 20 minutes later, her husband came home and asked her why she had a "KICK ME" sign taped to her back.

On her birthday.

I have a child who pushes boundaries. If you say there is the line, he doesn't just come up next to it, he puts his foot over it. And again later, just to make sure that you are still enforcing the consequences. And again. He is not someone you can usually give chances to. He will just expect the chance next time. Once he knows you aren't going to budge, he will usually settle in to compliance, but it is a pretty long learning curve. And this is not just with me. This is with teachers, my parents, babysitters, and most lately, his new primary teacher. I kind of expect a call from any authority figure until he finally realizes that he DOES have to obey.

Thankfully he has a lot of strict adults around him NOW who are teaching him about consequences at a young age. Even his school teachers are kind, but don't give him more than an inch. Good to start learning that in kindergarten. Plus, he knows the school WILL call me if he is too much out of line (and they have...)

Anyway, there was a point when I felt like almost all of my interactions with him were disciplinary. I hated it. I'm not sure where I came across this idea, my brilliant child-psychologist sister-in-law, the many parenting books I have read, or after a lot of prayer, but this has made a world of difference:

Mama Time.

For a certain period of time, I play with him doing what he wants and only focus on him. Today we worked on our lego fort that we have been working on together all week. Sometimes we read, other times build GEOTraax, but I let him direct what we do and how we do it. I usually set a timer because I don't have a lot of time and it helps define the specialness of Mama Time to him. And every morning he asks me when is his Mama Time.

This 20 minutes of time has made a WORLD of difference, even changing his behavior all day. He is still him, but I can't tell you how good it's been. For us. About a month ago, my sister-in-law was complaining how difficult one of her children was being. With her husband gone all the time, she wanted to leave him buckled in the car all night after a particularly bad evening. I told her about Mama Time, and sure enough, she said it has made a huge impact in her home. She said she only has 10 minutes for 1-on-1 time, but even that 10 minutes makes such a difference.

We have been doing Mama Time for about 5 months now, and while he is still pushing at those boundaries, I have also really enjoyed a change in him. He is SUPER helpful... I don't know what I would have done these last 3 months without my 2 oldest. He loves making his little brother laugh and will share or do things so kind to his sister and all of us. I'm sure a lot of it is because he is getting older, but I can't help feeling grateful for all the memories we share each morning in our special time, just him and me.