I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
This Is How Charlie Brown’s Mom Felt
Did you ever watch old Charlie Brown cartoons, where any time an adult spoke it came out as “wah wah wah”? I think this may be what I sound like talking to my kids.
Every night as I get the bath ready the boys have to pick up their room. That’s been a house rule for as long as I can remember. Just put toys back in the buckets and books back on the shelves. Five minutes worth of tidying at the most. Unfortunately my inability to speak the same language as them hinders the cleaning process.
Take last night for example. Evan was putting the trains back in the box so I asked Trey to put the blankets that were under the bed back on top of the bed. He picked up his bug pictures and began talking to them. I asked again for him to pick up the blankets. He began dancing in a circle. Again I asked. He picked up shoes off the floor and put them on top of a book. At this point I was questioning if I was in fact speaking English or if I had somehow slipped into another language and hadn’t realized it.
My already worn copy of How to Talk So Kids Will Listen is getting even more worn with use. But I think I’m going to have to accept that when I talk only other adults can understand me. Kids hear “wah wah wah”. Maybe I need to break out some Charlie Brown cartoon specials so the boys can learn to translate what they hear into a language they understand. Does Rosetta Stone sell a program to learn adult speak?
Zeb couldn’t take real direction until he was much older. He would forget or find something “sparkly” that grabs his attention. Until the past year or so, everything that needed to be done was done as a team and as a game.
Have you read “Raising Your Spirited Child”? It’s a good one too. Not great but definitely some tools can be taken from it.
If all else fails, just repeat “this too shall pass”. Too quickly, in fact. My mom even swears one day I’ll miss the mess.
~Tara
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kids are 7 and 5…we spent the weekend wondering why we had to keep saying something OVER AND OVER to get it done.
We did the Charlie Brown talk and would chuck in words like ice cream and pokemon to see if they were listening…
Smart sneaky little buggers
Oh lord…I had this issue with Gabee and I wanted to pull my ever loving hair out!!! Drove me BATTY. Though…as much as I HATED that song…it was the only thing that seemed to work “Clean up clean up everybody everywhere” Yea…hate that song. There’s got to be a better one…but I found they could understand me if I was singing, not so much if I was just talking. They understood more signs than they could use as well. So if I could actually get them to look at me and I’d sign what i wanted and then sillily ask them what I said, what I wanted done? They’d giggle and do it. *shrugs* kids are weird. HTH some.
It is nice to know that I am not the only one that is banging her head against the wall in frustration. I feel like I need to get a tape player or something and just record myself saying something over and over so that I can save on the wear and tear on my voice. “Do not poke your brother in the eye” for a whole hour might do the trick, although Daniel is a month old and that lesson STILL has not sunk in.