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Last week I shared a past post from this blog on the Our Out-of-Sync Life Facebook page. And boy did the comments come in. Questions. Excitement. All surrounding the idea of teaching a child first time obedience.
Today, I want to answer some of those questions and provide you with further resources on this topic.
1. For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you have read about Little Man’s numerous shenanigans and the fascinating things he says. But if you are new to our story, you may be wondering why our third child has taught me so much. To begin, I encourage you to read more in the categories: Our Story, Spirited Child, and ADHD.
2. Raising Little Man has humbled me and brought me to tears more times than I would like to admit. He has defied all normal parenting and discipline techniques leaving me (and many professionals) baffled as to what to do.
If you missed the post mentioned above, I encourage you to click over and read Wisdom Learned from Little Man. In this series, I share three specific areas which I targeted in training our spirited, sensory-sensitive, ADHD child.
- Teaching First-Time Obedience
- Lock It Up (self-control)
- Reporting
The ideas provided in these posts came from desperation and a desperate need for obedience. Each of these have been instrumental in making forward progress with Little Man and I share step-by-step ideas in hopes to help others. I am happy to report that a year later he continues to be successful in these three areas of obedience.
3. Several of the questions that I received centered around the jumping that Little Man does when he disobeys. Let me try to expound on this technique.
One of the biggest secrets we learned from Occupational Therapy for sensory kids is to have them jump on the trampoline. I don’t considerate it a “discipline” technique. Instead, the jumping motion provides these kiddos with the sensory input needed to help them get into control and focus on the issue at hand.
We only use the trampoline technique with our two boys with Sensory Processing Disorder and ADHD. I have never used it with our other two kiddos.
And yes. There were many times when the boys have refused to jump. You can read Helping My Child Out of a Meltdown where I explain how we have handled this. While the boys’ initial thought of jumping continues to be negative, they now recognize the positive results and don’t fit it.
4. Another question asked was when to begin teaching kiddos these concepts. I once read that all children should learn to immediately stop, go, or stay when commanded. For one, these commands are the essence of safety, let alone the premise for obedience. So, the ideas used in Wisdom Learned from Little Man can be used with any child who is needing to learn obedience. In our house this began right around the time each child turned one.
5. If you would like more information on this topic of discipline and raising “tough” kids, I encourage you to check out these posts:
- Consequences that Work
- This is Not Normal – How Sensory Processing Disorder Affects Our Family
- The List of Rules in Our Home
- Warnings vs Threats
- Helping Your Child Out of a Sensory Meltdown
