Tomato Staking

I have mentioned a bit about the struggles I am going through with my children and myself...and all the realities that come to light there.... I had a great pal email me a site addy for an interesting concept that I felt was incredibly helpful. Tomato Staking Tomato staking your child to you.... For those of you who don't get the idea of Tomato Staking from merely the name....when you garden tomatoes, the plant itself grows very tall. To keep it from bending too far down, or growing in the wrong direction, or breaking, and producing less fruit, you tie it to a stake to help strengthen, train, and help to grow tall and produce as much fruit as possible. The idea behind using it with a child who has a habit or problem, is to keep them with you so you can correct the problem on the spot over and over until he/she gets it right....on more than one occasion. It can be used for something as simple as temper tantrums, thumb sucking, or more drastic things like lying, stealing, fighting etc. Your child stays with you wherever you go all day, everyday until you feel the child has mastered the problem, whatever it is. You give them specific things to do, and you give them silent time...where they do nothing for a given time....being realistic. When I first started reading it, it felt like I'd be punished more than my child would be (haha)....but seriously, I thought that it was a controling way to punish your child (IE: you did something wrong, and now you are forced to sit with me), ultimately making them dread time with me. After reading the entire article, though, I realized that it is more beneficial to have them with you, with more one on one time to work on all sorts of things than just the problem specificially. Now, if your child is gone to public school all day, the article mentions that you can still tomato stake, just to do it as soon as they walk in the door from school. It takes longer, but still builds the relationship. But since I homeschool, I have all day to work with them. I start this today with my biggest problem. I'll let you know how it works.