Clear Expectations & Stop "Nit Picking" With This Three Step Program

We've all been there. Nit picking at every little thing our kids (and sometimes husbands) do that are just driving us crazy. Thing after thing that we just can't seem to understand WHY they're making these choices. I was getting so overwhelmed with what seemed to be an endless day filled with things I had to address. I was driving MYSELF crazy with the amount of prompts I was giving or instructions to "please stop." Then I realized, what if I DIDN'T address everything? What if I only prioritized the big concerns and everything else that wasn't ideal to ME, let it go?

We all have our own way of doing things. I don't even like others being helpful and doing the laundry because they don't do it the "right" way. But our kids also have a preference with how they do things and I realized after many struggles that's okay! My husband and I started chunking behaviors into different 3 different levels and the best part, since we communicated our plan before behaviors occurred, it actually strengthened our relationship and bond as parents. If we saw a behavior we did not like from our children we would look at each other and decide what level behavior it was. We also discussed the "red" behaviours with our kids so they were clear with what was absolutely not acceptable in our home.

As I said, for us, we kept "red" behaviours for mostly safety concerns. Things like, no hitting or physical forms of aggression will be allowed in our home. This told the kids that if they were to do that, this would be addressed 100% of the time, no exceptions. Our "green" behaviours were things WE, as parents, had to let go of. "Yellow" behaviours we kept for "medium" sized behaviours in which we assumed they were either having big emotions they weren't quite capable of communicating effectively, or any other skill they were lacking. This usually involved using our calm down box (as discussed in last blog post,) and then a resolution of some sort.

Separating these behaviours made it so much easier to understand and organize, and allowed us to only address what really NEEDED to be addressed. I get, it is hard to let go of certain things, but our kids are their own people and will naturally do things their own way. This also made the effectiveness of the behaviours we did address increase because we were addressing less.

Sit down with your significant other to discuss what you both consider to be "red, yellow, and green" behaviours. I love having this form of communication and to have the clear boundaries we expect from the kids. It has eliminated SO many disagreements when it comes to parenting and we are on the same page which is a win-win!