Take a Lap! - My Latest Parenting Tip

You may find this a bit bonkers but it's working over here in my world. Summer has been fun but it's come with a price! My ears have been aching with the sounds of shrills and whining! My head has been pounding from the constant she scratched, hit, pushed (insert verb here!) me. But wait there is more...he's copying me, he's annoying me etc., you get the idea! Any parent with multiple children would by this point.

Rather than the standardized forms of punishments which all end in me raising my voice and pulling my hair out I have gone the fitness route! That's right - "Take a lap I say." Run out your issue. It's possible you would see something like this if you were driving in my neighborhood.

She hit him and he had tattle told one too many times. If your going to tattle tale then someone should be in danger or you should be bleeding! This works really well because it's a circle and I can either make them run the circle or tell them to run to the white truck and back. If they walk they get to do it again! At first they thought it was kind of fun. They're not really thinking that any more.

This is one of those famous car rides! You know the one where they are constantly fighting in the back seat but there is nothing you can do because you're driving? I was on the way to some place and she kept hitting her brother. I asked her, "Do you wanna take a lap?" She said, "Yes!" So I pulled the car over into a parking lot and told her to run to a trash can and back! My boys were extra good from then on because they knew I had no problem pulling the car over.

Seems a little crazy don't you think? Well, there is still an entire month to go and yes clearly I'm a little crazy. As a matter of fact while I was writing this parenting tip to share with all of you it happened. My two boys came to me, one tattling on the other so I sent them both outside to "Take a lap!" around the circle. Here they are in their jammies running! My next door neighbor was backing out of her drive way being cautious not to hit them. I know she was wondering what the heck they were doing! Mind you the eldest is running with a television remote in his hands. Geez... I'm sticking to it! They are a lot nicer to each other afterward.


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