We'll try this, I guess.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. We are about to employ some "natural consequences" (aka Love and Logic) for some ongoing behavior issues starting with Bryn and once we get her straightened out, we will be moving on to Grant. Poor kids.

I already blogged about the sleep issues we have been having. For a little over a week, we have been telling her that as long as she goes to her bedroom at 9:00 every night, she is free to do whatever she wants as long as she doesn't come out of her room and bother and/or wake us up. She has been up until at least 11:30 every night reading, playing Nintendo and doing whatever it is that 8 year old night owls do. One would think that this would make an 8 year old night owl happy enough and she would therefore leave her tired parents alone between the hours of 9 pm and 7 am. One might also think that she might realize that when she is dead tired when we drag her out of bed at 7 am that she should go to sleep earlier. Not so. And the battle continues.

Since I haven't yet figured out the consequence for not staying in bed, I am coming down hard on another behavior issue. There have been some problems with exclusion and some mean behavior when Bryn gets together with other kids (really only two sisters which makes a group of three, which any female knows is an absolute recipe for disaster!). Anyway, instead of going to their house tonight for their 4th of July party, Bryn will be staying home with a sitter and figuring out how to pay her. Since she doesn't have any money since she hasn't been doing her chores (yet another issue), she will have to sell something worth the $25 it will take to pay the sitter. I am sure you will be able to hear her screaming all the way to Pennsylvania when we tell her.

Now, I might be making it sound like I have a horrendously ill-behaved child, and that is far from the truth. In fact, she is a sweet, smart, funny kid. But she needs to become a sweet, smart, funny adult and since it is my job to make sure that happens, we are going to work on the little things before they become big things.

Wish me luck...