working as a team...

Within the four walls of each house lay a distinct set of values. The view from 10,000 feet may look similar (God, family, then others) but what does the day to day look like? My biggest daily value struggle is check marks vs. the children because I am a check mark lover. But today in response to a question from a fellow home school mom lets talk about sibling love/relationship vs. discipline.

Many think this odd, but we allow our children to share their consequences. Thankfully we have a Savior in Jesus that paid the ultimate price to share our consequences. Using that as a model, if someone has their cookie taken away, often their siblings share and they eat cookie. If you are Becca (our youngest) you often end up with more than you would have had if you didn't lose your cookie. We have seen great benefits to this policy. The kids have a comfort knowing that even when they have messed up someone is willing to show kindness. Even a consequence issued with a calm tongue can feel unkind (if they liked it, it wouldn't be much of a consequence). It is not uncommon to see all five sitting in "time-up" when one was required to be there. It isn't that the consequence has gone away (the cookie is still gone, you are still in time-out) but the full intended extent may not be felt. A concern may be that an arrogance may develop of "oh well, my brother will give me his cookie anyway". We have not seen this, but we have seen a genuine gratitude develop and servants heart's grow. We have seen them bloom into compassionate and loving children when a sibling is in trouble. I remember being so excited when my sister was in trouble(I know, I am a terrible person). We don't see that in our home. Our mercy policy may or may not have any effect on that behavior, but it has worked well for our family. We believe it is one of the reasons our children get along so well and enjoy each other so much.