A Different type of Basic Training

Reveille (music):  It's Time to Get Up, It's Time to Get Up, It's Time to Get Up in the Morning. 

"Get your laziness out of bed right now, I want to see you upstairs in formation, standing at attention in two seconds.  Move it, move it, move it, move it."

That's the way I got my kids out of bed.  We had decided that our first item of business for our summer school would be to refocus and master the basics in our home stewardships before we could move forward with disciplining our minds on academics.  I'd just spent a month dejunking, and almost filled a room with all the shtuff I was getting rid of, but the house was still in a constant chaotic state.  We needed retraining and changed habits. 

So Aristotle and I discussed how to try and make it a fun and effective training.  We decided on both a boot camp style theme along with payment for their successes.   I gave each child a camo t-shirt and proceeded to get into character of drill sergeant.   If there was any back talk, negligence, or disrespect, the entire patrol would have to do KK's (what we affectionately call kiester kickers).  I also gave them each $15.00 - in dimes - to be received at the end of the month.  Each time they failed to fulfill their assigned stewardship, they would lose a dime and if someone had to do someone else's unfinished chore, they would earn their dime. 

I moved forward with this plan - hoping it would be the inspiration my children needed to take charge of their life. And we adjusted to this new routine fairly quickly.  At least I thought. 

Pretty soon I was hearing comments about how my kids didn't like me yelling at them.  It just didn't seem like me.  (Not that I'm successful at not yelling at my kids, but there is usually something upsetting me when I yell).  One morning, I wasn't able to wake them with reveille and yelling, and I got so many comments of how much they liked this better.  At first I just shrugged it off as humorous aspects of the training.  But as I thought about it, it began to weigh heavy on my mind. 

What was it about this approach that was so unsettling to my children?  Isn't that what drill sergeants and even athletic coaches require of their trainees to discipline them for the task at hand?  Is this a bad way?  Is there a better way? 

I was considering these questions as I went to the temple.  While there, I was considering how the Lord would want me to train my children, and how he trains his children.  Can you image our loving and eternally wise Heavenly Father screaming at his children to conform to his requirements in drill sergeant style.  The idea was absurd.  Heavenly Father simply lays out what is required (in a calm and assuring voice), and then enforces the consequences for whichever choice we make (in a loving but firm manner).  It's made me rethink all the military training, sport coaches, etc. may be more after the style of Lucifer's approach - make them do what I want them do through force, through intimidation, through breaking their spirits, etc. 

So surely there is a proper way of helping a child go beyond their ZPD (zone of proximal development - the area of what one can't do by themselves but can do with help).  Obviously there are some growth experiences that require an outside push because we wouldn't go there if left to our own devices.  Even Heavenly Father allows trials to teach us things that we wouldn't have learned in any other way. 

I've concluded that this may be more of a training of me, more than a training of my children.  Training me to be patient while they may or may not choose to do what is required.  Training me to be more firm and consistent in applying consequences (lost money, lost opportunities, lost peace, etc.) in a loving and, again, patient manner.  Training me to trust the changing of a person's heart and habits to the one who actually has power to change them.  That's not within my power (my only power is choice). 

It would be easier to scream and force others to do my will, and sometimes it would be nice to have someone do that to me so I'm not so accountable, but that's not the plan I signed up for.  So I submit to a different type of basic training.