Discipline

The Bible tells us that God disciplines the ones He loves.  I love my students, my precious children, and know that discipline is an element of school that needs to be mastered.  Since this is the beginning of this blog and the beginning of our school, I'm sure this post will be outdated in short time.  We have not yet figured out what method of discipline works best for us.
We began with the disciplining that has been a staple for our family as a 3-hours-together-a-day family.  Well things get a little more sticky the more time one spends with another, especially with family.  When I turn my back to the children, they quit working.  We have a built in desk in the corner of our office/den/classroom area and I stay in the room and do computer things while they do seat work.  I get so irritated to turn around and the same blank paper sits in front of my daughter for 30 minutes.  I've resorted to screaming, swatting, talking, cuddling, pleading, throwing fits (yes, me, the mom), and calling off school until the next day.  I've seen little reward systems and demerit systems and just haven't fallen into one that is just right for us.
Since our children were both in structured classrooms of a Christian school, my husband and I have both told the kids that their behavior would not have been accepted at CCS and it is not acceptable here.  That is so true, but the other thing that is true is that this is not CCS and the structure of our class time now is completely different.  We like the different!  We like the hard work being done by noon!  We had a serious talk with the kids one night and came to the conclusion that our kids do not realize how many times a day they question my decisions, talk back, fight with each other, and/or need to have instructions repeated multiple times before obedience.
Through collaboration, my husband and I decided to place their deeds in front of them.  So far this has worked the best for the kids when I am consistent.  Every time the kids misbehave they get a check mark on their sheet by the day of the week.  My daughter got about 15 check marks the first day.  We had not decided what that would mean when we made the sheet, though.  At the end of the day, she was shocked at the amount of times she disobeyed.  My son got at least 5, but he is older and caught on more quickly.  I didn't know how much of an impact this technique would have and we decided that each check mark meant 1 minute earlier of bedtime.  The second day Jess got at least 10 check marks and had to go to bed earlier than her brother who had received 1 or 2.  By the end of the first week both kids were getting 2 or less check marks.  The bed time thing was a little silly at that point.
The check marks were minimal, but seemed to have less and less impact and my husband came up with the plan to have the kids make their own check mark so they would be active in their punishment.  Also if there are more than 10 checks on a day, the child with the checks will get punished by Daddy when he gets home from work.  I have become more tolerant of their behavior too and we have cycles of how bad the kids need to be to deserve a check mark.
If I post a definition of which actions deserve check marks, then the kids will be giving each other check marks and that won't do.  I've seen the clothespins on a rainbow sheet where they go up for good behavior and down for bad behavior, but my husband didn't like it because it may show the kids that good things will cancel out bad things and I agree that is not the mindset I want to instill in the kids.  For now we get check marks for bad and I just need to be more consistent.  We do have really good days and we also have really bad days.
I added the heart to the behavior sheets.  If I spy the kids doing something kind beyond expectation, I give them a heart.  Jonathan started his school day without complaint or being told while I was trying to hurry Jess on to just eat breakfast.  He got a heart for that.
Our behavior sheets are in the classroom at the back of the house where company may pass through, but not linger.  I do not want my children's downfalls to be broadcast to each person who enters our home and the point is not for all to see their issues, but to keep them before each child.  Like I said at the start, our discipline system will likely change as we learn about each other and become more established as a school, but here's how we've started.