Parenting

Being a mother to four toddlers is hard. Especially when one of the toddlers is a foster child and is dealing with insecurities.

This week I have done a lot of praying, asking for guidance in helping Marc to control his behavior because he has been out of control lately. First I was asking about how to stop the biting because that was getting more and more frequent and Rebekah was starting to bite again too and they were leaving horrible bite marks on everyone. As I was praying about it the other night the inspiration about stopping biting came! It was that Marc is VERY motivated by food, especially sweets. And when he bites someone, I was to offer everyone who was using their teeth the right way some candy. When he asked for some too I was to say -with empathy, “Oh, no, Marc, you didn't use your teeth for food. Brigham used his teeth for food so he gets some. Bekah used her teeth for food...” and so on. I only had to do that three times before the biting stopped. Then, later he almost bit Brigham, but he stopped himself, looked at me and said, “teeth for food”. I applauded him for not biting and gave everyone candy including him so they could use their teeth for food. What a blessing that inspiration was! It's been so nice not to have to deal with biting 4-5 times a day! And all the bite marks are beginning to heal!

Well, with that behavior under control I began to pray about the other problem behaviors. Last night I was thinking about it after the children were in bed and I got the impression to read an early childhood newsletter that was sitting on the counter. So, I did and the first article I read was about a mother who had been dealing with a toddler who had a lot of behavioral issues with her son. She started to spend 10-20 minutes a day just sitting on the floor and letting him choose the activity and just playing- letting the child direct the play. That and a few other things changed the mother's perspective of her child, and the child's behavior began to improve immensely. I thought, I need to do that with all of my children, but especially with Marc. So, we're going to try it this week and see how it goes.