Pause Your Nose…again
ByContinuing on with The Week of Repeats…this post was originally published April 8, 2008. Yes, I still pause my kids’ noses.
————————————————
With four kids…all of them old enough to talk…and all of them with VERY important things to say…things that MUST be said RIGHT now…
Sometimes I can feel overwhelmed with everyone talking at once and never really feeling like I can hear any of them.
It sorta sounds something like:
“MOM! We-I-Can-But-are-need-you-I-going-to-get-need-to-go-me-to-have-potty-a-pillow-fight-drink-talk-to-you!”
Okay, um…what?!
And of course, trying to have a conversation with my husband…one that I can actually finish…kinda looks something like thi……
(I may never really know how his work day really went…)
So while we’re working with the kids (constantly) to not interrupt…and to recognize that when others are speaking, they need to wait their turn…
And helping them to understand that their need to tell me about what happened to LarryBoy on the most recently watched Veggie Tale show is maybe not as urgent as they might think that it is…
I one day came up with a little tool that worked for me.
As two of my boys walked into the room and both started talking at once…I just reached out my pointer finger at one of them, pushed gently on his nose and said, “Pause.” (as if I was pushing his pause button…)
And he did…pause.
The first boy finished what he was saying.
And then I turned back to the other one and pushed his nose again, and said, “Unpause.” He grinned…and finished what he had started to say earlier.
From then on, I have been pushing their little pause button noses left and right. (so to speak…)
It’s a lot easier than saying, “Please wait until your brother is finished talking, and then you can have your turn to speak…”
Oh, and the kids love it!
Now I am so used to pausing noses…that one day while talking to my friend in the church foyer…one of my kids came up and really needed to say something important…so I reached up without thinking and pushed my friend’s nose and said, “Pause.”
She started laughing…and said, “Um, did you just pause my nose?”
Oops. I realized that indeed…I had just pushed on my friend’s nose and told her to pause. I hate it when I get the wrong nose.
(Thankfully she loved the idea and started using it with her own kids. I’m pretty sure she has since then paused my nose on occasion…)
While I am now more careful about who’s noses I’m pausing in church foyers…this plan works VERY well for my kids…and I highly recommend it!
——————————————
Works for me Wednesday is now being hosted at We Are THAT Family.
I love it! I’m gonna try this out tomorrow! I mean, someday… if my kids ever interrupt each other. ;)
[Reply]
What a cute, useful idea! We have the everyone talking over each other problem, too, so I may give this a try!
[Reply]
Great idea! Wonder if it works on teenagers? I guess it’s possible, since it worked on your friend at church. ;-) I’ll have to try it and see.
[Reply]
Love this! With four kids, I have to give this a try!
[Reply]
LOVE it! What a cute idea!
Can I try it on people at a school board meeting? Do you think that would go over well?
[Reply]
What a brilliant idea!
I’m so stealing this one :)
I laughed out loud at the image of you pausing your friends nose!
Hahahaha!
[Reply]
I just loved that you paused an adult. What a great idea!
[Reply]
Laura, What a great idea! I can’t wait to try this. I have three little boys who are constantly talking over each other with great excitement. So, what do you do in the car?
[Reply]
BRILLIANT! I have this issue all the time and I end up raising my voice. I have discovered that my kids respond much better when I do not raise my voice (duh!)…so this is a perfect solution…and saves me some stress too. Yelling is over-rated! ;)
[Reply]
I am glad you are doing the week of repeats-this is great stuff that I missed! I have been reading your blog since about May of last year, I think. So, I am glad to get caught up on what was going on before I found you:) I love the nose pause idea-so simple!
[Reply]
This is hilarious! I wonder how my pre-teens would react. Very clever!
[Reply]
I LOVE IT!!! I will be giving this a whirl TODAY. Hopefully I won’t pause my friends noses, but it is likely to happen.
[Reply]
What a cute idea. I’ll be keeping this idea in the back of my mind for when mine get older. I too am glad for this time of repeats as I just found out about your blog a few months back.
[Reply]
This is really a cute idea! …and funny!
[Reply]
What a great tip! I love it!!
[Reply]
Love it! What a great and kid-friendly idea. I’m totally going to try this next time I get interrupted!
[Reply]
That was funny about your friend’s nose. The idea is a neat one. I’ll have to try that one on my kids.
[Reply]
Love, love, love this idea! My kids will too. With 5 kids-well, only 4 talking, I never know who’s saying what. This is great-no raising voices or yelling and everyone gets to say what they have to without being interrupted.
[Reply]
I am still laughing at the image of you pausing your friend’s nose! I wonder if it is too late to start this with my girls. Something tells me my 15 year old would not find it amusing. But I might try it anyway (evil grin)!
[Reply]
Great idea!! I’ll have to remember this for my Girlie. I know for sure it would come in handy with my 7 year old chatterbox of a nephew!
[Reply]
You have 4 lovely boys!
[Reply]
I am definitely going to start doing this! I can’t wait to see my 4yo’s face the first time I try. Great idea!!
[Reply]
Very funny! I was so used to licking my finger to wipe a smudge off the faces of my toddlers that I did the same thing to my mother without thinking about it! I have also told my husband to “hand that to Mommy”.
[Reply]
I tried this on my kids (esp my older one) after the last time you posted it, and it worked great. Now the 4 yo is having a lot of trouble interrupting, so I’ll have to put it back into rotation!
Thanks!
[Reply]
Love it…and will try it today! Thanks!
[Reply]
Wonderful idea!! I have a four-year-old son, and I am a Girl Scout leader, and I am tired of being interrupted! I look forward to seeing if this Works For Me, too.
Reminds me of a friend whose two-year-old tends to crowd other kids without realizing he’s making them uncomfortable. He loves trucks. So she says, “Back up, [name]. Beep! Beep! Beep!” and stops beeping when the other kid has enough space. :-)
[Reply]
I loved this post! So much so that I included it in a top 10 list in my recent WFMW post. You were #3. Way To Go!
[Reply]