Lately my son, who just turned 10, has begun to make what I believe are inappropriate noises or just not talking appropriately. Specifically, he goes around making noises like "Uhhhhh," "Ugh," "Guh," "Duhhhh," (not in sarcastic sense, but just a noise.) OK, I know that this probably sounds very silly, possibly even crazy to some of you, but it is driving me crazy! Not only that, but my two younger sons have also begun to make the noises their brother seems to enjoy so much. (I realize it's most likely just an age thing, but I seriously cannot imagine George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or other great men answering a question with, "Uhhhhhh, let's see.")
Well, this week I found a discipline for this behavior that seems to be working better than I ever imagined.
I sat and thought about it and thought, "How do I WANT him to talk instead? What noises do I want him to make?" I want him to guard his tongue and his words and not just let noises for the sake of making noise come out. There are many places in the Bible that talk about how important it is to watch our talk. Proverbs 21:23 is one of them, stating "He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity."
I would like for my children to use words wisely, work toward speaking intelligently, and not make verbal exclamations (like "ugh"). I figured perhaps they need more practice actually using "good language." So I printed out the Preamble to the Constitution from The Homeschooler's Book of Lists (list #186) and told my boys that every single time they make an inappropriate noise, they get to read the Preamble aloud to me. Once they have read that enough that they have it memorized, I told them we'd go on to Patrick Henry's speech that ends "...give me liberty or give me death." Then, if the noises continued, we'd go on and memorize all the other really cool documents that they should know anyway.
The funny thing is that the redirection has worked so well that after five days of this particular discipline, now they aren't making the offending sounds at all. I guess I'm going to have to use this discipline for some other transgressions!
Sonya :)
www.sonyahaskins.com
Comments
Dec. 15, 2007 - Funny
Posted by MomAtHome
How funny. I hope you're still managing to memorize some of those wonderful things. My 6yodd hums, sings or whistles all day. Though she never knew my father, he whistled all day too. Not even conscious of it, I think. The other day at WalMart, we were serenaded (as well as everyone else nearby) with "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" during our entire shopping trip. She's memorizing the first verse for the church Christmas program, so we had to sing that one verse over and over and over and over and . . .
Dec. 20, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by blessinghill
Love it! What a great idea! I may have to try that one too.