A CHALLENGE

The history - Our family has moments of fun, but our home has become defined by strife. There's no purpose in sharing the nitty gritty details of that with the masses, but it's definitely something that each W has a part in. Well, maybe not Tyler. He pretty much walks around being cute and hearing "don't touch" all day. The rest of us, though, have developed various habits of treating each other poorly. 

The discovery - I was at the library last week, just skimming titles, and picked up a book that seemed like it could be helpful to our current family climate. I'm not going to tell you what it was right now, as I want to finish it first, but there was a little snippet that struck me soon after I started reading. It was particularly relevant to one aspect of W strife, so I read it to Tim on Sunday night and we had a brief discussion about it.

The challenge - Tim came up with an idea. He and I were not allowed to say anything negative, neither in words nor in tone. Everything had to be positive or neutral. Each negative thing we said would result in doing one push-up. 

We would start the challenge on Monday morning, but would not involve the kids. We would keep track during the morning and do push-ups when the kids had naps and downtime, then keep track the rest of the day and do push-ups after they all went to bed at night. One day at a time. 

The results - Neither one of us had to do push-ups on Monday. You have no idea how miraculous that was!! We had a quick over-the-top positive conversation that morning, clearly a bit on the silly side.  The kids laughed, but they had no idea there was anything deeper going on. The rest of the day went well. I had one moment that I had to make a concerted effort to not be rude and stopped myself from complaining about trivial things a couple times, but that was it. 

Neither of us had to do push-ups on Tuesday either. There were a couple warning looks exchanged when thing were getting tense, but no one was rude. Silas and I were gone for a few hours in the morning, the kids had naps and downtime in the afternoon, and Tim was gone all evening. The fact that we weren't all home all day obviously increased our odds of meeting the challenge, but it still counts as a successful day.

Today has gone well. At least for one of us. 

The other, however, said something in a snotty tone, then added "please" at the end of it in a desperate attempt to make it sound like they were being positive. Unfortunately for them, the one who has done well heard what they said and repeated the word "please". Loudly, so as to make sure the rude one knew they had been busted. Then one of the little Ws started laughing and saying "please". Then another little W asked what was so funny. The laughing little W pointed out that the parent in question had been rude and tried to cover it up by throwing a sticky sweet "please" on the end of their request. Pretty soon everyone was laughing, even the busted parent. And the non-rude parent repeatedly said "I win" when they were out of the earshot of the little Ws. Of course, the little Ws still didn't realize there was more going on behind the scenes.

Anyway, all the little Ws had naps and downtime. I wanted to read and Tim had a meeting to attend, but something needed to happen first. A push-up. I don't want to be negative by saying who was the first to fail the challenge, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. You'll know which parent earned a push-up and which one had nothing to do but sit around in crazy socks, jammy pants, and a sweatshirt that didn't come remotely close to matching.

The future - Yes, we will still be rude to each other and to our kids on occasion, so the push-up score will even out. We're human like that. But the last 2 1/2 days have given me hope. I don't know why something as trivial as the threat of a push-up is all it took for us to start turning the tide or why we didn't think of it sooner, but it doesn't matter. It's working!! We'll probably complete a full week of the challenge behind the kids' back, then switch to immediate push-ups and start involving them.