Called to Testify

I reread this from President Monson, “Once we have a testimony, it is incumbent upon us to share that testimony with others.”(Ensign, November, 2011 page 67).

So my mind’s been pondering this indepth..  I’ve had a lot of amazing and wonderful experiences the last while and I haven’t really shared them with others.  Sure some shouldn’t be shared, but I have had plenty of faith promoting experiences that should be shared and that could be faith building to many people.  I feel the call to start blogging more.  To testify. To help share the good news.  Now I just have to remember to blog. 

None of these experiences are anything to “write home about” as far as being awe-inspiring or “that should be in the Ensign.”  They are however, quiet faith building experiences that remind me that I am a child of God, God does have a plan for me and He knows exactly what I’m up too.
So where to start?  I feel impressed to let you into my life a little bit.  I have to admit I am not exactly thrilled about that.  We’ll see where this goes….

I have a bad habit.  (Well, I have more than one, but we won’t get that personal today).  I love sleep.  I love to sleep.  I love thinking about when I get to sleep next.  I imagine being in my jammies and snuggled down in bed.  So cozy, warm and blissful.  (It is 20 degrees outside, perhaps that is prompting my cozy, snuggly thoughts).  Just thinking about it is well, “ahhhh.”

So here’s the big problem.  I sleep too much.  I am not a morning person or a night person, I am simply a sleeper.  Perhaps you don’t get enough sleep, but I get plenty.  It gets worse.  The Lord has told me over and over that I need to get up early.  For years it’s the same thing.  So I go in spurts.  I’ve gone months upon months of getting up at 5 AM.  Numerous times I’ve done this.  I do well for six months and then I go back to day dreaming about sleep and it’s just too much and I succumb.  Well, the real problem is the getting up.  Why is it so hard to get up early?  Perhaps the obvious answers are: it’s cold and it’s dark.  Another is that I just love snuggling with my husband.  Why get up?  It’s sooooo hard. 

The Lord’s been inviting me again.  Well, He never stopped, I just didn’t want to listen.  I am like a child with my hands over my ears, “I can’t hear you!”  The plan was working really well until it happened.  The Lord tried a different approach and my husband did something really jerky.  Well, that’s how I initially viewed it.   He heard the Lord call him and so he started getting up early.  He didn’t even discuss it with me.  I am sleeping soundly in his warm arms and then, he’s gone.  He’s up studying on the couch in the cold and in the dark (well outside it is).  And he keeps doing it every morning.

So who am I supposed to snuggle with now? The cat? The dog? The nine year old?  Needless to say I just started to get up with him.  What else can I do?  So here we go on round number 25 of Deanna trying to get up early to obey the Lord.  I hope it lasts because the spiritual outpouring of blessings that come to me when I get up early and study are amazing!  They are more important than my sleep.

Another interesting tidbit is that even when I sleep in (until 7:30) I still go through my routine: journal, conference talk(s), and scripture study every morning.  Usually for just as long too.  However I always get WAY more out of my studying when I study earlier.  Why is that?  Like I said, it’s cold and it’s dark.  My eyes are glued shut and I’m delirious.  But it never fails.  I learn more.  Every single time.

The scripture that always comes to me when I think about this is Doctrine and Covenants 88:83, “He that seeketh me early shall find me, and shall not be forsaken.”  My husband and I always “argue” about this one.  I say it means we should get up early and he says it means we should seek Christ early in our life.  We’re both right I suppose, but it has been a great comfort to me.  I have a testimony that when we get up early the Lord will speak to us, that when we draw near unto Him, He will draw near unto us. (D & C 88:63)

It’s so simple.  I believe it.  But why is it so hard to comply?  I receive so many spiritual blessings when I heed the call to seek Him early.

President Packer said this to the graduates of BYU-H, “These are sobering times you are going out into a world that is different than the world I faced when I was {19}…You won’t survive spiritually unless you know how to receive revelation…I don’t know whether you know how to receive revelation, but you won’t survive without it…it’s a noisy world, and you’re going to have to learn personally, and privately, and individually that revelation will come when the Lord can speak to your feelings…go quietly into the world and quietly go about your affairs-learn that in the still, small hours of the morning the Lord will speak to you.  He will never fail to answer your prayers.”  BYU-H Commencement Address, December 7, 2005.

I find this quote motivating.  Not only about the importance of revelation in our lives (which is a top of the list priority in teaching my children), but because of the promise that the Lord will speak to us in the quiet hours of the morning and teach us everything we can possibly handle.  In those quiet hours He will mentor us on receiving personal revelation and fulfilling the measure of our creation.

So why is it that we learn more in the early morning hours than later?  I don’t know the answers.  Perhaps it’s quiet. Perhaps nothing in the world has had a chance to mess with us yet that early.  Perhaps because it is cold and dark the Lord accepts that seemingly pathetic sacrifice for what it is-the best we can do.

So I hope to testify more regularly about the truths I am learning.  Because again to quote President Monson, "Once we have a testimony, it is incumbent upon us to share that testimony with others."

The Headgate Revisited

About a month ago I realized that I hadn't read "The Headgate" article in quite a long while. Somehow in my move it had been misplaced. I emailed and received a new copy. It was the one thing I did read while on our latest trip. I have been pondering it this last month.

So just what are my thoughts now after a year of first being introduced to it? Still love it! I came away with a strong impression again about how true the principles are. These principles aren't new, they've been around a long time, but I respond to the way she articulated the principles in her article.

Through rereading it I was able to review and look back over the changes we had made the last year and say we grew and changed significantly in our family. What a year of growth we had. I didn't do wonderful with all the principles but there was a great awareness and application that took place. Below are the five aspects of The Headgate. I have "scored" how I thought I did this past year. I will then talk about each principle.

1. Create a House of Order Score: Good
2. Require Work Score: Okay
3. Inspire Daily Score: Good
4. Understand Lessons and Daily Application Score: Fair
5. Close the Headgates Score: Great
   

Create a House of Order. I gave myself a good on this. Most of this step was something that I thought that I already knew, understood and applied. I didn't really focus on this step and so I think I missed some application that I now understand.

I did learn a lot about this subject this past year in other readings I pursued. I learned about gender roles, modesty and submission. There were some examples of this step on her website that at the time (a year ago) I didn't accept. I don't know now that I agree with here absoluteness on those situations, but I am much, much more in agreement with her now. I realize that I need to embrace my role of wife and mother and not pawn it off on my husband because I'm tired, etc.

Another thought I had while striving to do a better job of letting my husband preside and protect me was that often I tend to jump in and "man-handle" the situation since I felt my husband couldn't. Upon reflecting I thought about the word "man-handle." That was exactly what I have been doing, and that is very wrong. I am now striving to submit and embrace my gender role. In that process I have seen more order in my home as well as finding that I am finding greater happiness personally.

I am rereading this step again now with more understanding. More thoughts have come on how I can improve.

Require Work. I only gave myself an okay on this step. I was asked recently by a reader how I have done with requiring work in our little house. We have really improved overall from where we were at a year ago, but still we haven't done so hot. This is a powerful principle that has been the very hardest for me to apply. When I'm not focused it's easy to just end up doing school work in the morning instead of working. I have long since jumped off of the conveyor belt but sometimes I can see traces of it still popping up in random places. When we buckle down and work we get an amazing amount accomplished and we all feel great (despite sometimes an initial grouchy attitude). I see instant results when I refocus on work in our home. The kids cherish their free time and use it very wisely.

At least half of the boys' free time they choose to spend learning. They read a tremendous amount, but they also play hard outside. (Right now they are building a fort like the Sackett fort). Since rereading the Headgates I have reapplied this principle and again seen tremendous results.

The hard step in this is figuring out what to clean after you've cleaned everything very well. This is especially hard in this little house. There are only so many walls to clean! I strive for about two hours (hopefully in the morning) of work. If we have to go somewhere in the afternoon and they won't get their free time I usually let up on the morning work a little. As I've struggled to figure out work to assign the simple answer has been to pray for help to know what they should do. As always when I knock the Lord will give an answer. He cares what they do for work also! Involving Him in the daily work plan helps motivate me to stay on this path and not deviate back to old tendencies.

Another principle that I relearned was her way to teach work (which comes from Lara Gallagher).  First they work with, then near and then independently of you.

To recap: We did okay this past year, but I have a strong testimony that requiring work is vital. I am recommitted to this step!

Inspire Daily. We scored a good on this. This principle I have learned and studied about in great detail through TJEd. Since reading this article I have limited my momschool time with them to just reading the current read a loud. By this I mean that my momschool/kidschool does not include a long or short list of things to read, practice and get through with them. Usually after dinner (at noon) I read a couple of chapters to whoever wants to listen. This is most often just the middle two. My read a louds are targeted to them as they need the most inspiring. Liberty has no problem going off and reading by herself. The last couple of books we have read are the first two Sackett books by Louis L'Amour, The Red Scarf Girl, The Hiding Place and now we are reading The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. We have had great discussions and they have been inspired by these stories. My simple goal has been to have them reading hundreds of books on their own. While they haven't read anywhere close to hundreds of books they have read a great many.

My husband and I have discussed how that the last couple of weeks we really feel that we are seeing a tremendous fruit of our labors with our children. They have an amazing breath of knowledge and are very well behaved. (The 8 year old sometimes has a problem with the wiggles and giggles in Primary and Cubscouts. He is doing a lot better though). The fruits we have seen I believe can be traced back to the hours we have spent in the classics together. I also attribute their compressive knowledge of gospel doctrine and scripture events to the hours upon hours we have studied together in daily family scripture study. They have been inspired not only in the classics but in the scriptures and all of them read the scriptures daily on their own with often no prompting.

Understand Lessons and Daily Application. I gave myself a fair on this one. In all fairness my children already know how to read and write and so there weren't necessarily lessons that needed to be learned from a 3R's standpoint. So here again is a step I sort of glossed over thinking I had it down. In hindsight I realize that I did miss out on some things. I did hold some writing lessons a year ago, but I was bored and they were bored and we dropped it.

Some important principles in this step are the "return and report" model which I already had a testimony in. This is an important model to adapt to my life.

Another important part of this step is to only teach them information that they need right them. Her example of not vomiting all the phonics rules on the them in first reading lesson is very valid.

I have also agreed with her point of teaching them things that are the most practical and things they can get daily application out of. I have refocused on this and noticed that there are basics things that my kids didn't know. A simple, silly example of this is during family prayer. We sing a hymn every time we have family prayer and sometimes we need hymnals for the hymn that is chosen. We realized through a couple of events that our children didn't not know how to share a hymn book. It usually broke out into a fight. At church the pews we sit on hold four hymnals. One for each child and one for me to share with whoever is sitting by me. (Hubby is on the stand). Because of this I hadn't ever realized that they couldn't (or wouldn't) share. So we had a "How to share the hymnal properly with your neighbor-whoever that may be" lesson. Since then they apply that regularly when we sing for family prayer. Another silly lesson is that we also noticed they were putting their scriptures away while a speaker was bearing their testimony at the end of a FHE lesson or a talk at church. We taught them how rude this is and that etiquette required them to wait until after the meeting was over to organize their belongings. These are simple lessons that they apply on an almost daily basis now and so these lessons are understood.

There are many lessons I realize that I need to teach my children that have nothing to do with math and science, but are important for life. This is another step that I realize that there are many things I can still be working on with my family.

Close the Headgates. We did so fantastic at this! This was my focus the entire year. The concept was talked about continually in our family and also among our friends. It is a regularly understood term. We not only removed 75% of our personal belongs, but we also put up the TV and the Wii.  We do still have them though. In the 9 months or so since we put up the Wii we have gotten it out once and we didn't even really play with it.  (I think we will probably get rid of it soon?) We have gotten out the TV/DVD more than that, but it's a chore to get it and we have it narrowed down to a very select list of movies we watch. I'd say we average a movie once a month.

Are children really don't have any toys now. They don't even care. They have some army men. They play with those occasionally. Maybe once a month. Lego's? We still have them, but they are put up also. In the fall they got them out a couple of times but didn't play with them very long and asked if we could put them away. I think they'll want to get rid of them soon.

So what do they play with? They have their "high impact battle swords" (I think that name is funny and I always say it. Sorry). They also bought fowling pieces at Valley Forge a couple of weeks ago. They also play with sticks, rope, yarn (when they ask permission) and metal junk they find on our land in the old barns. They play hard and make forts and fight in wars together. Their weapons get "checked" at the door in the mud room because chivalry says you don't come into a home armed.

Gone are the electronic toys, gone are the art supplies, gone are the costumes, gone are the puzzles and gone is the junk! It has been so liberating and wonderful.

I can't neglect to add that I removed personal headgates from my life that I was "busy" with and it has allowed me to focus on learning, inspiring and living my gender roles. I can't begin to describe how life changing these concepts have been for our family
In Conclusion, The Headgate article has truly brought amazing changes to our family. We have seen wonderful growth. The principles that I applied have helped me understand the principles of Zion and it prepared me to receive so much further light and knowledge that I would not have received had I not closed my own personal headgates. Once I allowed our family to be released of some of society's trappings I found growth. I look forward to better applying the other principles that I skipped over before.

Waling to Zion: Casting Down My Idolatry

Idolatry. That was what Brigham Young said was one of the main reason the Saints could not redeem Zion. How am I doing on this?

Idol worship means worshipping something/one instead of God. It keeps us from doing the right things; no matter how small. They are often seen in the form of addictions. These are our weapons of rebellion.Elder Kearon recently said,

 "We must lay down our weapons of rebellion (and we each know what they are). We must lay down our sin, vanity, and pride. We must give up our desire to follow the world and to be respected and lauded by the world. We must cease fighting against God and instead give our whole hearts to Him, holding nothing back."

Today there are many idols we can worship. Money. TV. Books. Sports. Music. Drugs. Alcohol. Tobacco. Pornography. Stuff. Image. Fashion. Shopping. Food. Work. Hunting. Hobbies. Facebook. Internet. Gaming. Time. Education.

I have found that it's really easy to recognize the idols that others have, but it's harder recognizing and accepting the idolatry in my own heart. I guess though according to Elder Kearon I really do know what they are and maybe I just don't want to admit them to myself.

Here on earth we have been given the wonderful gift of agency. How to we use it? Do we use it to bow down to worship dumb idols or are we worshiping the one true God? Elder Hales said, "Every time we go out, every decision we make, we are either choosing to move in his direction or in the direction of our Savior. But the adversary must depart if we tell him to depart. He cannot influence us unless we allow him to do so, and he knows that! The only time he can affect our minds and bodies-our very spirits-is when we allow him to do so."

I find hope and strength from this. I can resist the temptations of Satan and refuse to bow down to my weaknesses. I must be vigilant though because I can lose my agency by making wrong choices. Elder Hales commented, "To retain our agency we must daily walk in the light our Lord and Savior and follow the path of obedience."

Elder Hales has talked about how we can reclaim our agency that we may have lost to wrong choices (idolatry). He says the path back should include these steps:

"Choose to accept-truly accept-that you are a child of God, that He loves you, and that He has the power to help you.

"Choose to put everything-literally everything-on the altar before Him. Believing that you are His child, decide that your life belongs to Him and that you will use your agency to do His well. You may do this multiple times in your life, but never, never give up.

"Choose to put yourself in a position to have experiences with the Spirit of God through prayer, in scriptures study, at Church meetings in your home, and through wholesome interactions with others. When you feel the influence of the Spirit you are beginning to be cleansed and strengthened. The light is being turned on, and where that light shines, the darkness of evil cannot remain.

"Choose to obey and keep your covenants, beginning with your baptismal covenant. Renew these covenants weekly by worthily partaking of the sacrament.

"Choose to prepare to worthily attend the temple, make and renew sacred covenants, and receive all of the saving ordinances and blessings of the gospel.

"Finally, and most importantly, choose to believe in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Accept the Savior's forgiveness, and the forgive yourself. Because of His Sacrafice for you, He has the power to 'Remember

{your sins} no more.' You must do likewise."

I thought this was important counsel to me in my quest to strip the idolatry out of my life. I must recognize the things I hold on to and that prevent me from laying my will on the alter. In my life most of what entices me to idolatry is the worship of my own agenda, my own ideas, my own time, and just simply my desire to do what I want. Regardless of how noble or wholesome it is if it is not what God wants me to do at that moment then I am worshiping the idol of my own self.

In Zion I must only worship the one true God. I must cease my self-worship, my idolatry.


All the quotes (except for the quotes from Elder Kearon) are quoted from the conference address, "To Act for Ourselves: The Gift and Blessings of Agency," given April 1, 2006.

About That Chore Chart

Mmm.  Yes. About the chore chart.  We have had two actually.

In the past we had a 'chore chart' that was specifically for dish detail.  One cleared, one loaded, one set and one swept. Simple.  There was just a little chart on the refrigerator.
What I wanted by not having a chore chart was to teach my kids to recognize things that needed to be done and to do them.  I wanted them to not be commanded in all things.  I wanted them to serve our family by doing the dishes out of love, not because they were assigned. I wanted them to stay and finish help whoever until the work was done.  It's a good idea right?

So I asked my children about having a chore chart.  I explained to them what I thought they could learn by not having one.  They voted to not have a chore chart. It was four to zero.  They only asked that I would make a list of all the things that needed done and hung on the refrigerator until they learned all the dish chores better.  Perfect!

Our housecleaning chores have never really been assigned. We have cards for how to do each job but we never use them. The kids have learned when I say "dust" they know what to do for example. I've always just assigned kids to do certain jobs that day. I'll say you dust, you clean the bathrooms, you vacuum and you do the laundry and they do them. Or on other days I'll say who wants to dust, clean the bathrooms....


After we get that down then I'm going to work on them doing the vacuuming and the bathrooms with out being assigned.  That will be the day!

Again, this is just for our family, our personality and our schedule.

Oh, we now do our house hold chores for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Early Morning Studying

I love getting up early so I can feast in the scriptures.  The house is quiet and I feel the Spirit speak to me. When I am in my regular routine, like I am now finally, here is what I do:

• (THIS STEP AS BEEN ADDED BECAUSE I FORGOT TO INCLUDE IT EARLIER).  I HIDE MY ALARM ACROSS THE ROOM UNDER MY TREADMILL.  BY THE TIME I FIND IT I'M AWAKE AND IT IS EASIER TO GET UP.
• Drink lots of water! This helps me wake up more completely.
• I don't pray yet, I'd fall asleep, but I have a prayer in my heart.

• Go out to the living room and write in my journal.
• Read one or two or three conference talks.  I take notes and think about the message.
• Begin reading my scriptures.   Going from journal writing to conference talks and then scriptures helps to also wake me up and to stay focused.  When I go straight to my scriptures I stare at the incoherently for a while before I realize it!
• As I read I always keep a notebook close by.  The main thing I write down are my questions.  Then I brainstorm.  Get an idea or two.  Do some cross referencing and more pondering.  I think about how the story or lesson or scripture applies to me. I keep thinking and writing.  For me to ponder I have to write.  If I just ponder in my mind I can't stay focused and my mind goes to activities for the day or I begin to get sleepy.  I receive so many great insights when I write things down. I have multiple notebooks filled with my thoughts.  In this way I feel like I am studying the word of God not merely reading it and I am an active participant in communicating with Heavenly Father.
• Now I pray.  I ask about all the things I pondered on.  Are they right? What am I suppose to do today? Etc.

Here's how my brained worked today.  I wanted to think more about the blessings of obeying the commandment to get up early.  I read in D & C 88 at the end of the section and section 89.  I thought about those scriptures for a while.  Then I did a topical guide search on sleep.  I noticed this morning that I've done this so many times that my topical guide natural falls open to the "sleep" page.  I made a column of the commandments to do with sleep and then a column of the promised blessings.  Then I decided to list all the blessings I recognize when I get up early.  This was my list:

• Receive more revelations, personal insight and answers to my prayers when I get up early
• Feel the Spirit more strongly through out the day
• The day goes LOTS better
• I don't feel "behind" all day
• I do a better job of eating healthy all day
• I get more done and I feel productive
• I feel more obedient
• Kids are better behaved because I make sure they get up early too
• We follow our schedule

Then I listed the drawbacks to getting up early.

• I am tired in the afternoon
• I get anxious about getting to bed by the time I need too
• My brain tends to stop functioning in the afternoon (This seems to only occur the first two weeks or so as I get back on my schedule.  After that I don't have this problem).
• I don't get to keep snuggling with my sweetie.

As I reviewed though I realized that I am usually always tired in the afternoon regardless of whether I get up early or at 8.  I felt again that I need to get out side and walk more during the day (I don't like going outdoors.  Maybe I'll talk about that sometime. Silly really.) to help give me that extra energy that I need.  I also recognized that in the afternoon I've a tendency to think that I am entitled to free time all afternoon also and I don't want to be bothered.   The truth is that I'm not in scholar phase any more.  I'd like to have that excuse to keep studying, but deep down inside I know I've learned what I need too and it's time to move on.  I really only need an hour or so to read something deep or write down some thoughts, but I feel I'm suppose to do other things right now.  Sigh, I so love reading lots of books.  Time to move on.

As with all things in life I realized again that doing the right thing simply requires me to exercise my faith.  When I obey and trust the Lord then I see the blessings.  No, I don't want to get up early when the alarm is buzzing, but I need too.  When I do I have seen and will see that I am blessed for obeying.  Sometimes you just have to step out into the darkness before you see the light. 

When I'm done studying after about an hour or an hour and a half I check my emails and maybe write a blog post.  Then I practice the piano to help wake up the kids.  Once they are conscious and moving for the day then I take a shower and continue to get ready.

Efficiency

I had some big beautiful plans that once August 1 rolled around we would be able to end our "Annual Break" (TJED recipe) and start right back into our schedule.  And then life happened.  We ended up having my brother and his family, who are wonderful, stay with us for almost two weeks.  They had some complications with their life and their 36 hour visit lasted a bit longer.  Now, we had a grand time but we didn't have a schedule.  Towards the end of last week we did at least start having breakfast at 8:30 again and I started getting up early again.  I have high hopes for this week

So last night we had a family council to go over the schedule again and our family work schedule.  Maybe one of these mornings I'll post about that.  So today we should be "back in the saddle again" as so many say around here.

As I was discussing things with our children and while we were trying to get them into bed earlier than they are use to going at the present I noticed my children have a lack of

Efficiency!

When it takes us an hour to get an 8, 9, 10 and 12 year old to bed I think their may be a problem.  Water breaks, teeth brushing, potty breaks, kisses and hugs, prayers, fighting, more kisses and hugs, in and out of bed.  It doesn't end. When I say it's time for breakfast chores they scatter like the wind and what should take 5 minutes somehow ends up taking 30 minutes.  Does anyone else have this problem?  Of course I realize I shouldn't say they have a problem with efficiency I should say I haven't taught them to be efficient.

New plan.  Teach my children how to be efficient.  I decided that we would start doing vocabulary words. The purpose not being to teach them random words, but to teach them new words and have them apply them to their life.  I'm not sure how long it will last but at least until we get the word efficiency down. So I pulled out my handy dandy 1828 Websters Dictionary and read: "Causing effects; producing; that causes any thing to be what it is...."  My own definition would be, "making good use of your time especially with your stewardships."  

So my first plan was to teach them the meaning. (check) Now to encourage them to make goals and recognize situations in their life times when they can be more efficient.  I plan to review the word daily for a while.  Perhaps if they know the word then they can become the word right?

The Redo

I am a lover of the parenting technique the redo.  I'm not sure where I ever heard it to begin with, but I have since read about in Charlotte Mason's Original Works.  Miss Mason talks extensively in her books about habit formation (which I am certain I will continue to post about).  In regards to habits she says,

"The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children." Home Education, Volume 1, page 136.

I think redos are the perfect way to help our children get into the habit of good behavior and good work effort.  What is a redo?  A redo is when a child does something incorrectly and you ask them to redo it the right way.  For example, if a child talks back to me I ask him to redo it and talk correctly to me.  If a child doesn't wipe off the table to his/her ability we will say, "please redo the table."  If a child gets angry and hits his brother I say, "That's not appropriate.  Please redo the situation and deal with it appropriately.  Would you like some suggestions on how you can redo it appropriately?"

Redos can be done for any poor behavior, any sloppy house work, any sloppy math assignment, etc.  I especially hammer in on the whining.  If they whine when I ask them to do some something I tell them I want them to redo that.  So I'll say again, "Leader I need you to change the laundry."  Then instead of whining Leader says, "Yes, Mom."  (Actually Leader loves doing the laundry).

We do redos in our house ALL day long.  In the six plus months we have implemented them the behavior in our house has DRASTICALLY improved.  Where has the redo been my whole parenting life?

There have also been times as parents where we have also said, "I am going to redo that.  I didn't say that right."  We have had whole conversations where the parent and the child have redone it. I think our kids respect us more when we admit and work on our faults too.

Q: What if your child won't do a redo?
A: In the beginning we had one particular child that refused or would go mute.  We gave them one opportunity to redo the situation.  If they wouldn't redo it we sent them to their room (or the corner).  They had to stay there until they would redo it.  (This would also imply that there were no toys in their room.  So if there are toys perhaps telling them they can only lie on their bed or you can send them to the corner).  I haven't had a problem with a redo since the very beginning.  They didn't like getting sent to their room and they quickly decided that it was easier to just redo it right away and get it over with. 

Q: My child doesn't understand how to redo it?
A: Sometimes we either have a short discussion and offer suggestions on how to redo it and then we role play the situation again.  Or I may role play the situation for them to begin with and then they model me and redo it themselves.

Q: Do you do redos in front of other people?
A: Sometimes.  It depends on who they are.  If they are close family members or friends we do.  Usually I'll take them to the side and quickly discuss what went wrong in the situation.  Our children respond very well to redos and are more than willing to correct their behavior now.

Q: Aren't there times when you just let a poor behavior go because it's inconvenient and you don't want to ride them all day.
A: No.  My job is to teach them all the time, not just when I'm well rested and in a good mood.  The redo is never done angrily or disrespectfully so the child doesn't feel like they are being "ridden."  Also in real life there is no time during the day when poor behavior should be allowed.  Just because we or our children are tired or hungry doesn't mean we have a license to be ill behaved.

I love redos and they have changed my parenting life for the good.  I wish I had known about them years ago.  I hope they can be a blessing that you can adapt to your life.