"Be a Thermostat, not a Thermometer"

Several weeks ago, as we were really struggling with Tristan challenging everything we asked him to do, we were able to attend a seminar through our school district called "Therapeutic Limit Setting."  The goal was to teach us language we could use to communicate better and leave us all feeling a bit more empowered.  It seeks to give kids' choices, but choices everyone can live with like so:

Parent:  It's time for bed!
Child:  No, I wanna play!

Parent:  I know you want to play, but it's time for bed.  You have a choice--do you want to crawl to your room or do you want to race mama to your room?  It's your choice.

It sets up a pattern: 1) acknowledge feelings 2) set boundary or boundaries 3) offer choices that still fit within the boundaries we're maintaining.  Many times even step 1 makes a HUGE difference in our house or allows Tristan to explain more about  his feelings and thoughts and allows us to create choices that make him happier (and easier to put to bed or transition to the next thing):

Parent:  It's time for bed.
T:  No, I wanna play!

Parent: I know you want to play, but it's time for bed.
T: I wanna play with the train!
Parent: ah, you want to play with the train, but it's time for bed.  You have a choice--do you want to drive the train to the bathroom, and then brush your teeth or do you want to drive your train to your room and read a bedtime story first.  It's your choice.

This doesn't always work.  Admittedly.  Which is where the most valuable piece of advice we were given came into play.

"Be a Thermostat, not a Thermometer"

It's all about how we approach situations.  If we're constantly reacting to tantrums, we're causing an escalation, instead of maintaining our own boundaries.  It's hard NOT to rise to our kids' challenge.  You want to defend against "you're a meanie! I hate you!"  But it's intended purpose often is to simply make you forget the boundaries.  So the 'trick' is to be a thermostat--stay set within the parameters/boundaries yourself, and not reacting to where the kids are trying to push.

Then a very funny thing happened last night.  We were discussing worship and some concerns that had arisen with behaviors, and I was trying to make a point about how kids wouldn't learn by us shushing (which we'd already outlawed in our kid-friendly worship anyway) or by telling them not to do things but that we needed to model for them-constantly and consistently--what worship looks like and what our attitudes look like.  I didn't have much success putting this into words, I don't think.  But when I talked to Rob (my husband) later, he said

yeah, it's like "be a thermostat, not a thermometer," right?  and it suddenly clicked.

Some perceived boundaries were gone when we stopped shushing (a conversation I had with a high schooler earlier in the week had informed me of this), and so we needed to establish others clearly.  It wasn't a matter of those in service not adopting worship practices--it was a matter of not knowing what those practices were/are.

So the challenge now becomes establishing that thermostat in such a way that is loving and embracing, instead of creating one that turns into a thermometer and causes frustrations.