The Little Girl With a Curl

There was a little girl that had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead;

When she was good, she was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.

Up until recently, 1 2 3 Magic had been working like a charm with the boys. It's a simple behavior management system that consists of us counting to 3 when the boys aren't cooperating and them turning their behavior around before we get to 3 or there is a time out. Over the past couple of days, I've gotten to three and the offender is completely ignoring me. That has never happened before, they usually jump as soon as they hear us counting. I stood there dumbfounded thinking "now what?". If 1 2 3 Magic isn't working anymore, my bag of tricks is empty. Kevin suggested in jest that maybe we should start counting to 4.


The boys just turned four and at times are already acting like moody and sassy tweens. I'm finding it's a fine line to walk with them, they are too often thinking of us as playmates rather than parents. I love the closeness we all share, the time we spend together with them reading books, puzzles and playing. However these little guys need to know their limits and to learn respect. I struggle with how to implement these values without being a constant critic of their behaviors. They have such an innocent and free spirit and the last thing I want to do is to stifle that in any way. I'm hoping like everything else in the past that this is just a phase. I'll lose sleep, obsessively think about it and in time they move on from the behavior and throw me a new loop.