The "I LOVE YOU" House

In a woman's bible study class that I am in, we are studying the Desperate Housewives of the Bible and the church where this is located also has a Christian Academy.  Last Wednesday (Jan 25), the leader of the group was explaining how a group of girls in the academy were not being "nice" and how the teachers got together with the girls and made an "I love you" group - basically mirroring the philosophy of Jesus of turning the check when someone does you wrong and having an attitude of love.  This lead into our lesson of being mad.  So often we find ourselves getting mad over the littlest things.  We identified in class this week whether we were a yeller, a stuffer, or a silent punisher.  Ask anyone in my house and they will tell you that I am a yeller.  The bad thing is that I really hate to yell - I know it is counterproductive and that when I start to yell, all anyone hears is "blah, blah, blah".  And the kids are picking up on the yelling as well - it has gotten to the point where all anyone of us do is yell.  So last week, I called it quits on yelling.  I am hoping that by curbing my yelling, the children will learn to curb theirs as well.

After hearing the story of the "I love you" group, I decided to turn our house into an "I love you" house.  The rules are as follows:

• whenever I feel like yelling at someone, I turn to them and say "I love you".  The key to this is you have to MEAN it when you say it.  This means no gritted teeth and no attitude.
• I lower my voice to a whisper so that the person has to focus on what I am saying in order to hear me
• I look at whomever the culprit is and ask what the problem is and I really listen to what they are saying
• Once the problem is identified, I empathize with them about however horrible or not horrible the issue is
• If someone starts to argue with me, I tell them that I love them way to much to argue with them and so it is not going to happen.

I will honestly say the first day, I said "I love you" and whole bunch.  The older kids actually looked at me and asked me to stop cause it was "freaking them out".  But that is what I wanted - I wanted them to realize there were changes being made.  I told them we were only going to speak in love with each other.  No more yelling at people, no more being mean or insensitive, and no more nasty attitudes.

It has been almost a week since I put this into play and I have to say that I do feel a better at the end of each day.  I am not getting worked up by all the silliness that once affected me.  The twins have learned that mommy means business when she whispers and I can see a change in them as they are not yelling as much either.  The bigger kids still need some work but honestly, they have almost 10 years of yelling engraved in their brains so I know it will take them longer to come around.  But one day, we will get there - and oh what a joyous time it will be.