Parent Class

Wayne Walder was the Physical Director at several YMCA branches in Cincinnati, so he had lots of experience watching unsupervised kids.  He had a great quote -  "We need a law that establishes before you become a parent, you have to go to a parental training school".  This popped into my memory as I listened to the book "Willpower, Rediscovering the greatest human strength" by Baumeister and Tierney.  There were a few chapters on parenting that suggests it is lack of  parental willpower to discipline which is the cause of the behaviorial chaos in "control-less" children. 

I remember the parental course Susan and I were required to take during our adoption proceedings.  Of course we thought we "knew it all" since we had eight years of the "hard knocks experience" with Jenna already.  Regardless, we had to sit through a video training  on child discipline called "Magic 1-2-3".  It was amazing and I immediately tried the technique on Jenna (then 8 yrs old) and it worked perfectly.

The technique is amazing.  When you want to discipline a behavior you just say - "That's One".  Normally the child might respond "What do you mean?".  No answer is needed.  If the child continues the behavior or action you say "That's Two".  At this point the child gets it usually.  But in the early circumstances of determining your "will power" a child might attempt it a third time.  At that point you say "That's three" and then punish with whatever appropriate consequence.  After only a few of these events you will rarely (and in my case never) get to three again.

It worked perfectly with Jenna and Ellen.  No explaining, no justification, just Magic 1-2-3!