How to make a zombie bride costume….

 How do you turn your 3 yr old into a zombie bride?

I bought a white bridal dress, white veil, white tights, white shrug and white sandals – all from ebay for a total cost of about £15!!  Everything was brand new except the sandals, I searched ‘girls first holy communion’ to find the dress and veil.

I started with my trademark trick – wetting the fabric a little and then cleaning dirty black shoes!  It helped that I’d parked in the worst part of a car part yesterday and we both ended up with very muddy shoes!!  Some of the black polish transferred as well as the dirt!  This worked a treat on the shrug and tights but not so much on the dress and veil due to them being made with cheap, high shine polyester.  I ended up taking them outside (in the snow!!) and squeeshing them into soggy mud concentrating on the bottom hems to make it look like our zombie was trudging through dirt to find her next meal…then around the front of the dress from where she’d be kneeling on the ground to feed!  I still didn’t get the dress as dirty looking as I wanted so I added some brown sauce into the mix!!  I used some black shoe polish on the white sandals and rubbed some brown sauce into them too and left everything to dry over night!

This morning, I smothered the neckline of the dress with fake blood and then trailed it down the front so it looks like she’s slopped her dinner down the front!  I also rubbed the fake blood into the sides of the veil and shrug to make it look like they’d gotten in the way of her meal.  I dried the blood as best I could with a hairdryer.

I covered ¾ of her face with a white loose powder (its actually a mineral concealer so it helped to hide her rosey cheeks!!) then applied a dark purple eye shadow around her eyes, temples and just under her cheek bones. I added a little blue to the upper eyelids too.  Most people make the mistake of using black to hollow facial features – purple is more natural looking so way more effective!  Start with a little then build it up, you don’t want a block of colour though and should still be able to see some skin underneath.

I then got a small Snazaroo face painting kit, ‘Deadly Dracula’.  I used a clean lip brush rather than the bush that comes with the kit and painted a black half smile coming off the left side of her mouth.  I drew the outline of teeth with it and filled in the rest.  I painted the teeth white then outlined with the red face paint, with streaks coming off to give the appearance of torn flesh.  I then applied a my favourite Maybelline Super Stay 24 hour lippy around her lips and down her chin!

As it started snowing last night (?!) I put 2 vests on her and a short pair of leggings.  I then scotch taped a cut up plastic carrier bag to the vest to prevent the fake blood on the dress from soaking through (it doesn’t fully dry!) and put another plastic carrier bag on top of the dress so we could fasten her coat to take her to her party at Daddy Club!  She won first prize and thought she was the bees knees!!

She’s got another party tonight so I’ll be touching the make-up up again and keeping fingers crossed for another prize!!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Making a complaint...

 Mis-sold utilities, ever increasing monthly payments, mis- sold mobile phone contracts, mis-sold cable contracts and mis-sold PPI's...

All of these issues come down to poor customer service.  Sales agents and shop assistants who are thinking about how much they get paid per signature (written or otherwise) they can get from you.

What can you do about it when you find yourself in one of these situations?

More often than not, when someone queries why they are paying so much more than they were expecting to pay - the person they are speaking to not only backs up the bad service you've already had in order to find yourself here, but gives you a whole bunch more bad service to boot!! Most of them have no real interest in what’s going on and just want to get you off the phone/online live chat thingy as quick as they can so they can get to the next customer and sell…they give technical jargon  by means of explanation, tell us they are right and we are wrong and that is that.

 

Sadly, this intimidates a lot of customers who are then either too embarrassed or confused that they don't understand what they've been told to do anything else about it, or think that because the first person has told them no, they have to accept it. 

I used to work on a high level complaints team for a big well known company in the UK. Before I was promoted to the position, I didn’t even realise that companies had such departments!  Like many, I would have given up at the first hurdle.  Now, I write super awesome complaints letters and have not yet failed!

My experiences here taught me how to listen, investigate, rate each case on its own individual merit and resolve accordingly in a fair and reasonable manner.

It sounds silly, but most of the advisors you will deal will not listen and this is what that plants the first seeds of doubt in your head.  If your advisor doesn't listen to what you have to say – how can they fully understand what you are asking and therefore give you the correct answer?  Many problems can be resolved just by listening to the problem!   

As for investigating – advisors have targets for all kinds of things, including calls per hour.  This means even if you do get through to someone who gives a damn, the time they have to look into the problem is limited.  This isn't so bad if it’s a reasonably straight forward problem.  If it’s bigger than this, then your best bet is escalation.

Working on this department also taught me not to be afraid of admitting liability and apologising when appropriate, many people feel a need to defend the company they work for when in reality, honesty pays more.  From a company point of view, you are more likely to restore faith in your customers if you’re willing to accept responsibility and say sorry!

Over the years, I've dealt with my own complaints too and because of my experiences both as the customer and the company, I’ve been asked many, many times to assist others with theirs.  I may even be able to help you!!

I’m currently in the process of complaining to my mobile phone provider for mis-selling my contract, my last mortgage provider for mis-selling a PPI policy (Payment Protection Insurance for those not familiar with it) and am about to raise a complaint with my cable company for mis-selling my upgrade contract.  I’ve just completed getting a full years’ worth of electricity charges written off for a close friend.

So how does one go about complaining??  Well, there are a few basic rules and steps that I follow in order to get what I want.  The rules are pretty much:

    1.     Stay calm – verbal abuse gets you nowhere.

    2.    Be patient – complaints take time – especially written ones as they need to be received, categorised and scanned to your account before they can be allocated to the advisor who is going to deal with your case. 

    3.    Don’t demand compensation from the start and only ask for it if it is genuinely deserved – you cannot expect to be compensated because you don’t want to have to pay for going over your allocated monthly minutes (you’d be amazed by how many times I’ve heard people demand compensation for problems they have caused themselves!)

Pretty easy to remember right?!  The steps are a little more involved, but are tried and tested so worth sticking to:

1.     My first port of call is to contact the company and let them know there is something I need to query. Personally, I prefer to do this in by email or live chat rather than by phone.  I can’t be bothered to wait on hold to get through to someone, plus you have a detailed paper trail to refer back to if needed. If using a web form or live chat you will need to copy and paste the thread into a word document or similar.

2.    I would expect a reply that is full of pre-prepared paragraphs that only vaguely answer my queries.  I then use this to begin the complaint, explaining that if I have taken the time to write to them and make them aware of my concerns, I expect them to write a proper response back to me addressing my particular concerns.  I then reiterate my concerns.

2.1.  If you decided to contact your company by telephone, you will need to ask to speak to a manager at this point instead. 

3.    If I’m still not satisfied with the reply (or managers action), I would then write a letter addressed to the MD.  This is a sure fire way to ensure your complaint reaches the dedicated complaints team.

4.   In my experience, you are still not likely to get your desired outcome in your first contact with this team. They may try calling you in a bid to covering any possible queries that may arise from their explanation, this will usually resolve the problem quicker – but remember to ask them to confirm the conversation in writing to maintain your paper trail.  Even if you are happy at this point, you may need to refer to the case again in the future.

5.    Trust your gut.  If you are still not happy at this point, let them know.  I always allow the dedicated team at least 2 opportunities to put it right before asking them to issue copies of all correspondence for me to pass to the ombudsman…this introduces your intention in a non-threatening manner so is more likely to have an impact and get you results. 

6.   Provided your expectations are realistic i.e. you are not complaining about a large balance after refusing to pay the recommended monthly payments….the industry ombudsman or governing body will take on your complaint.  They will take an impartial look at all contact between you and the company to decide if you have a case or not.  If you do, they will make a recommendation to the company as to how to proceed.  They will send you a copy of their report.  Both you and the company are given the opportunity to appeal against their findings , Then they will expect resolution.

I have followed these steps for the many, many complaints I have raised, assisted with or taken over during the last 5 or 6 years or so and have not yet needed to contact an ombudsman – although I’ve just sent the step 5 letter to my mobile phone company today!

Are you wondering if there’s something wrong with one of your accounts?  Are you thinking of making a complaint?  Have you made one?  Let us know you’re experiences – whether you need help or might be able to help someone else!  Leave us a note below and let us know!!

If you don’t want to post it on here, you can email me at thebluehairedgirl@virginmedia.com I’m more than happy to help in any way I can and best of all….unlike other services, my help is free!!!!!

Naughty Little Monsters

So you’re kid has been naughty….they need to know there are consequences for bad behaviour…what do you do?

I’ve been having this discussion with people for a few days this week and there seems to be something in the air.  Or water.  Or something as every 3 year old I know has been an absolute horror over the last few days!!    So what do we do about it??  Well, St Supernanny would have us put them in time out for 3  minutes.  She would tell us to come down to eye level and tell them to look at us when we talk to them.  She would tell us to deliver a warning.  She would tell us to put the little horrors straight into time out when the behaviour continues.  Have we all tried this??  It would appear it’s the punishment of choice with the parents at the school gates so I’m guessing at least 95% of us have, does it work??  Not in this house!!

I can barely boil an egg because I’m so bad at timing stuff, so I bought a Time Out pad from eBay for just a few pounds.  It lives at the bottom of the stairs in the hall.  You basically set it with your child’s age, then when they behave badly, you take them to the designated place, press the ‘Start’ button to activate, sit them on it and away you go.  An alarm will sound if they try to leave the pad – and I have to say, this feature works a treat!  My monster hates the alarm so when she’s put on it…she stays put!!  It starts with a red light, and then as the time passes and you get to that last minute, the lights switch to orange – letting your beloved little one know they are on the home stretch.  At the end of the time, the lights switch to green and there’s a celebratory sounding tune.

All of the steps as recommended by Supernanny used to work a treat…coming down to eyelevel, demanding she look at me, delivering a warning then leading her by the hand to the step.  Explaining why she’s on the step then walking away while she serves her time.  Then she got used to it.

I have a friend who works for social services and teaches a parenting class to bad parents, yet every time she babysits her 3yr old nephew, she drops him off at grandmas after a few hours because she can’t handle him….and he’s not even that badly behaved!!!!

It’s easy enough for these so called experts to see common sense behind their methods – but what do they suggest we do when the little buggers become immune and the methods no longer have the desired effect?

These days, she’ll do everything physically possible to avoid eye contact and as for the warnings….I might as well be waving a red flag to a bull in a china shop for all the good it does!!  We all know she’s gonna go and do what I’ve just warned her not to do the second the words leave my mouth.  Then it’s a case of dragging her kicking and screaming to the step.

Then, once I’ve actually managed to get her sitting on the pad, from the second I walk away she will scream herself hoarse and be close to either hyperventilation or vomiting by the time her 3 minutes is up!  And that’s when I can tear her off!  I have problems with my back and neck and sometimes the struggle to get her to the step causes too much pain and I have nothing left in me to fight back at that point and have no option but to sit with her L

If I end up sitting with her (and believe me, that is a last resort!) I am able to calm down quite quickly and am usually able to both get and keep her attention so I can calmly explain in more detail why it is that she needs to do as I am saying.  It leads me to wonder if sitting with her and discussing it calmly isn’t a better way to deal with the situation?  All these kiddy whisperer types people tell us we should not be instilling fear but rather taking control of the situation - am I not instilling fear of the step by delivering warnings and walking away once she’s on there??  The way she reacts would certainly lead me to believe so – but is it just an act??  Is it a stalling tactic to avoid punishment?  How on earth do these people figure it out?  And why do they never have kids of their own?!?!?!?

When I was a kid and I misbehaved I got a smack on the ass – or worse still, the side of the thigh (ouch!!) and I’ve got to say, it really didn’t do me any harm!! I never actually did much wrong anyway, I usually only got a smack for being cheeky!

So what do you think?  It’s pretty safe to say that you’ve tried giving time outs so share your stories on method, how successful it was and other punishment/teaching/positive reinforcement techniques you’ve tried….tell us the good ones, the bad ones, the funniest and the lamest….

So I've been feeling a little inspired over the last few days …

I started on my first batch of homemade body wash which naturally, did not go quite as according to plan

I used the ‘Bar of Soap’ method that I found on Pintrest on Sunday night.  The pin originates from Jillee’s blog www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com

 

I've read a handful of articles on this method and while the recipes change a little from article to article, the method itself remains the same.  
Jillee tells us she used 3 bars of Dove and 6 cups of water.  

Jillee explains that it is very watery at first but thickens over night, ending up just slightly runnier than a normal body wash.  She also advises that due to the amount of moisturizer in Dove, the 6 cups of water works perfectly and recommends adding more to suit depending on the soap you use...

I like Dove soap and I love all things Shea Butter, so I opted for a 2pk of Dove Shea Butter soap. 

As I was using 2 bars instead of 3, I used 4 cups of water instead of 6 – this is where it went wrong!!

My turn now!!

I put the 4 cups of water into a large pan and started bringing it to the boil.  As it started boiling, I put the first bar of soap into a glass jug and microwaved it on full for 90 secs.  I stirred it with a wooden chopstick and transferred it directly into the pan then did the same with the second bar of soap. It takes an age for every last bit of soap to dissolve but all  you need to do is stir it from time to time while you're waiting.

I don’t know if it was because of the Shea Butter, but it was actually pretty thick by the time all of the soap had dissolved and actually solidified in just a few hours!! 

Luckily, I had some spare time last night so I put 1 cup of water in a pan and brought it to the boil.  I turned down the heat and started to spoon the body wash mixture into the water.  It actually wasn't as solid as I’d thought – it could be cut with a knife but was still actually quite soft and had almost a mousse kind of consistency - which was good as it meant it dissolved really quickly!

As you can see, once melted, the consistency was just slightly thicker than water.  I transferred it into a container and left it to cool. 

 I checked the body wash mix after about 8 hours to find it was still too thick! 

 It was more like a body butter consistency! so today, I've  melted it into another cup of boiling water – bringing it to 6 cups of water for 2 bars of soap - again, it melted really quickly and this time it was even waterier (is that even a word?!)

Fingers crossed, but I’ll let you know how it goes!!

Homemade Bath Crayons

I’ve been scouring Pintrest recently looking for activities that I can do with ‘the lil monster and as mentioned on my Facebook page, decided we would try and make our own homemade bath crayons yesterday.

I came across a pin which originates from a blog by Ehlane O’Connor 

littlecrunchymama.blogspot.com  

She tells you to ’Buy Some glycerin soap at a craft store.  Melt it in the microwave, add food colouring and pour into a mold.  I used an ice cube tray.  You can also add essential oils if you like, though I find it unnecessary for crayons. Takes about an hour to cool completely, then pop out of the mold and you have crayons’   Sounds easy right?

WRONG!!  I’m not entirely sure where it all went wrong, maybe it’s because I bought a branded glycerin soap from the supermarket instead of a craft store (would it even be any different?!) either way, our crayons did not turn out like Ehlanes!!

Ingredients:

Bar of glycerin soap

Food colouring 

I started by grating the soap on the finest side of the grater

Then melted it in a jug over hot, but not boiling water.

I stirred continuously with some old chopsticks until it had all melted, then poured between 4 old shot glasses.  I added a few drops of food colouring to each glass and mixed well.  The colours looked amazing, although the pink crayon mix looked identical to the red mix!

I then poured each glass into my ice cube tray, pressed the contents firmly in then left it all to cool for a few hours.

All steps from pouring the melted soap mix into the shot glasses onwards were awkward as the soap began to set immediately on being taken off the heat!!  It started to go lumpy as I mixed the colours in too.

We set it all aside for a few hours so it could fully harden, then when it was time for the 'lil monster to go in the bath, we popped them out of the molds.  


It’s easy to spot which of the 4 colours was mixed first and which was mixed up last!!

                                             

It wasn’t only the texture  that left a lot to be desired though!  My ‘lil monster was soooo excited to play with the crayons, so you can imagine her disappointment when there was hardly anything to see!!   I will have to play around with the recipe and method a little to try and find a better and more descriptive way of making the crayons for next time….I’ll keep you posted, but in the meantime, why don’t you let me know where you think we went wrong and/or what you think I could have done for a better result….

 

I’ve also started work on up-cycling an old tee.  Again, this is from a pin I found on Pintrest.…I haven’t taken any pics of it yet as the tee shirt I’m using at the mo is just to use as a template so I can get it right before starting on the gigantic heavy metal tee (I love putting a girly twist on this kind of stuff!)  I bought on ebay.co.uk for just 99p!!  Photo’s and steps will follow once I've finished the heavy metal one!!!

How do you prepare for Christmas on a budget??

With so many friends and family members to buy for, how can you prepare for Christmas on a budget??  And as if that wasn’t a big enough worry, most of these people also have a birthday between late November and mid-January too so all the more reason to try and find a more cost effective way of doing it!!

So…Money saving tip #1 Cull your recipients list!! 

It sounds harsh, I know but believe me – most of them will thank you for it!!  While the B and I still only have the ‘lil monster, my big bro and closest cousin each have 3 kids.  Most of my friends have 2 kids that I usually buy for and I usually only see them at Christmas and birthdays!!  So after Christmas last year, I pretty much told everyone but big bro and best friend that I was no longer buying their kids Christmas presents.  My cuz, was over the moon!!  Like me, she struggles to buy her own kids’ presents never mind any one else’s!

For those that made the cut…divide the remaining recipients into 2 lists – kids and adults.

Now consider what you usually buy these people then consider what they usually buy you.  I find that some of the people in our buying circle will give anything in order to have something to give but little to no thought goes into it, some gifts are even the givers' own possessions-  2 others and  I were once each given a big bar of dark chocolate (the kind no one ever eats), an impulse body spray (the design of the can was the same as the one I used to buy when I was 12 and no longer in production!!) and a pair of tights that had clearly been a 3 pack that she had in a cupboard somewhere that she had opened and divided between us - they were American Tan and she's about 4'9" while the rest of us are between 5'5" & 5'9" !!!!!  

Don't get me wrong, I have been known to re-cycle gifts from time to time...one relative insists on buying clothes for the B from a particular shop that they know he hates :-(  The're always the most unflattering of items too.  We were starting to build a bit of a collection, then one year, we were particularly broke and it was this person's birthday.  We grabbed a shirt that we'd had for a few years, wrapped it and handed it over with an extremely heavy conscience!  The guy actually loved it and has worn it quite a bit!!   So, money saving tip #2 :recycle but just remember this is only acceptable if what you are recycling is going to the right person!

Consider where you usually purchase the gifts.  I’m pretty sneaky with this and usually shop online at www.boots.com for those of you outside of the UK, Boots is like a huge, fancy drugstore.  They have a special shopping day every year where for every £50 you spend that day in a single transaction, you get £12 worth of loyalty points and almost all of the gifts are on a 3-4-2 offer too so when you buy 3 gifts, the cheapest one is free , loyalty card holders also get vouchers for extra points if you spend £xx.xx etc.  At first, you could use all of the vouchers together and in the first year, I made £60 in loyalty points, which I used at the Dior counter to buy my Christmas presents from the B…major score!!  They’ve wised up to this now though and in order to get £12 points per £50 spent, you have to shop in-store (otherwise you've got to spend £75 online)  where only a limited portion of items are available and the only offer you can take in conjunction with the bonus points vouchers is the 3-4-2 deal.  Last Christmas, I made £12 points.  I got a false eyelash set and a cheap lip pencil :-(

The point is - many, many people flock to boots to do as much of their shopping as they can on the 3-4-2 and get their points but the thing is....all of the gifts are sold at full RRP, while many other shops have the same thing at a cheaper price.  Everyone is so concerend that they have to buy in multiples of 3 and have to spend enough to get the points that they don't realise they are often spending more money and often on things they don't even want!!!!!!!!!  Therefore money saving tip #Don’t be drawn in by offers – shop around!

Buying for the B’s family is damned near impossible!!  I usually go to loads of different shops and look at loads of different things, getting all hot, bothered and stressed before going home and  resorting to buying toiletries on Boots' 3-4-2 offers!!  My family are super easy to buy for, my dad always wants golf balls or golf socks and my mum usually picks something when we’re out shopping together while the B and I usually give each other money towards tattoos and such like.  The kids all get some kind of toy.

Well, this year I plan to cut out all of the unnecessary stress and countless wasted hours by making my own toiletries!  My dad is still getting golf balls (he's already bought them and asked for the money back, bless him!!)  but everyone else is getting my 'Blue Peter' specials as the B would call them (meany!!)  I've looked spent lots of time finding various recipes (with not a single hour wasted!!) and have decided everyone will get body wash and the ladies will get a body lotion or butter to go with it while the men will get a shave lotion of some sort!

I've found 2 different recipes for body wash that sound really good and I'd like to try and make the men's smell more manly so I'm going to be experimenting soon!  Money wise - most of the websites and blogs I've been looking at have calculated the cost per batch or item but I am new to this so don't have many - if any - of  the ingredients already.  I'm pretty much buying everything from scratch so instead of pricing per item, I'm working out how much it costs me to buy everything I need - including packaging - then dividing it between the number of people I'm giving them to.  As I don't yet know which body wash I'm going to make, I've just roughly calculated that I'll spend around £5 in total, per person!!  I usually spend a minimum of £10 per person (say £15, £13 & £10 on 3-4-2 = £30 ÷ people = £10) so I'm saving about 50%!!!  Major score!!  That makes money saving tip#4  Make your own!

I'd love to hear your Christmas preparation tips, whether its for presents, decorating, wrapping or food!  Share your Hanukkah or Eid plans, hints and tips or even Thanks Giving, birthdays or anything else you like to celebrate! ideas....anything goes so please leave a comment on here  post on my Facebook by clicking here don't forget to 'like' the page!!  You can also use the link on the side of the page to visit my FB page or to follow me on Twitter!

Getting your 'lil monster to behave...

I don’t know about you, but I've always found it pretty easy to encourage my 'lil monster to behave nicely…until now that is!!

She’s 3 ½ years old now and since she started nursery school on her 3rd birthday, her little personality has really started to develop!!    She’s a lot like me, in that she’s strong willed, likes to get up to mischief and have a good time! 


She will no longer listen or do as she's told!  Maybe it's because I haven't much experience or maybe its because I'm a bad mummy, but I really can not turn my constant frown upside down these days!!   Don't get me wrong, she's always had to be asked to do stuff 2 or 3 times, especially if she's playing and I want her to do something, but now she's actually saying no, shouting at me to leave her alone and when she's really frustrated she will blow in my face, lick my finger/hand/arm (this started as biting me but she hurt me so much the last time she bit me that I actually screamed and she got quite a fright!  

My Mum is my ‘go to’ person for advice – she raised my brother and I after all and we turned out relatively normal(!) 

I've asked her quite a lot recently about how she managed my tantrums and instilled manners and good behavior in us when we were that age, but she keeps insisting that  we were just well behaved kids….yeah right!!  Has she met me?!

Now that my 'lil monster is getting a little older and a little more independent, she wants to do what she wants to do and nothing will stand in her way… I've watched Supernanny a.k.a. Jo Frost and we introduced the naughty step not long after she turned 3.  It worked really well at first, if she ignored the warning, she would come to the step and sit quietly for the full 3 mins.  The novelty eventually wore off though and now as soon as I move towards her, she goes for the most awkward nook, cranny or position in order to make it as difficult for me as possible to move her – I have back and neck problems at the best of times and these have been intensified temporarily after a recent fender bender L - I have to physically pick her up and carry her to the step while she thrashes around violently.  I’ve ended up being kicked in the face more times than I can count!  (Fortunately the face kicking is from the thrashing and not intentional)

One of the main things I take form Supernanny is that my monster is not a monster at all!!  Of course I know this already, I don’t call her a ‘monster‘  because she’s a bad kid – far from it!  I call her that because of her fascination with monsters.  Most of her favorite toys, TV shows and movies all have monsters in them.  She also likes to play ‘monster’ type games – we have to hide from ‘daddy monster’ under a blanket while the B has to pretend he can’t find us, or we play tickle or kissy monsters, but never the less, it is always reassuring to know there are kids out there that behave worse than yours!!

The other thing I take from Supernanny is that in most cases – the parents are to blame for their kids behavior!!  Eeeek!!  It's horrifying to think we must have caused this, but we have to accept the idea before we can work on putting it right and that it's gonna get worse before it starts to get better!

I  decided to look on line for ideas and I found an article entitled ’10 Things Not to Say to Your Kids’ by Brenna M Hicks – Child Therapist, LMHC.  While I don’t usually like to look for experts’ advice (Supernanny is the exception to that rule as you can actually see the results on her show!!) – this article really hit home.  Mainly because I’m guilty of using at least 9 of these 10 things!  Whoopsies…who’s a bad mummy?!

Ok, so although I might say it a lot, I don’t really think I’m a bad mummy, but my ‘technique’ clearly  needs some improvement.  Brenna believes that parents can re-train themselves to use Play Therapy principles. It sounds a little bit daunting when it’s put like that but when you read the article, it actually seems incredibly easy.  It’s basically encourages you to use positive words rather than negative ones.  So here it is, what not to say:

1.         ‘No’

2.        ‘Good job’

3.        ‘Don’t argue with me’

4.       ‘Wait until Mummy/Daddy/other significant person etc hears about this’

5.        ‘If you do that one more time’

6.       ‘You’re doing that wrong’

7.       ‘This is what happens when’

8.       ‘You can’t/don’t do that’

9.       ‘We are (doing whatever it is the child doesn't want to do), ok?’

10.     ‘You are making me mad now’

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I say ‘no’ more than any other word in the English language!  I always thought it was really important to start with a ‘no’ from an early age as there are sooooo many parents that don’t bother with it and just let their kids do whatever they feel like with no regard for the consequences – and in turn teaching their children not to consider consequences.  Brenna suggests rather than telling your children what not to do, we should tell them what we want them to do instead i.e. rather than ‘no shouting’ we could use ‘inside voices please’  or instead of ‘no running’ we could say ‘walk please’  Makes sense right?!

The principles basically seem to revolve around acknowledging your kids and being clearer with your expectations.  Offering guidance and encouragement instead of threats and fear factor…in other words, acknowledge achievements by pointing out that they have accomplished something ‘You did it!’ instead of just letting them now they've done a ‘good job’, deal with the poor behavior yourself there and then instead of making the kid fear the person who will deal with them later – by which point they are either too frightened or have completely forgotten what they have done and then  don’t understand why they are being punished!  

If I want to guarantee a kick off (which of course I don’t!!) all I have to do it tell  my 'lil monster that if she ‘does that one more time’ she will go on the step  It’s like waving a red flag to a bull.  Before I’ll have even finished the sentence, she’ll have the wickedest little grin on her face and will be doing it.  I’ll be taking Brenna’s advice from now on and encouraging 'lil monster to ‘choose’ her behavior – if you choose to continue that then you choose to go in time out.  

So how about you??  How many from this list do you use regularly?  Do you have perfectly well behaved kids that you can take out to eat in public??  If you do….WHATS YOU SECRET?!?!  Are parents who let their kids do whatever showing more trust and getting results  - or just plain lazy and inadvertently teaching their kids bad behavior?  Who gives you the best advice? 



Check out Jo Frost on Supernanny,  Supernanny  US and the  Supernanny  website:  www.supernanny.co.uk 

Brenna’s website is www.thekidcounselor.com and is highly worth checking out!!  This particular article can be found here According to the website, she is currently taking clients for Parent Training…as if I didn’t already wish I lived in Florida!!!