“When correcting your child, anything over twelve words is too long.”

Whew.  Eleven.

Dang.

I went over. Again.  Fail.  Sigh.

See how hard this is?

That’s a direct and thought provoking quote from Dr. Karyn Purvis and the Empowered to Connect Conference from a week or so ago.  As she so eloquently puts it: Anything longer than 12 words goes into the ‘blah-blah-blah category (OK, so it’s a paraphrase…she actually acted out the Peanuts Teacher Talk Sound – see video above).  Well, I know this, I do.  But, this was/is always like a shot between my eyeballs as I, as you know so well, cannot speak in short simple phrases.

Our modern techno world and social networking should help with all this I think…..you know, it’s a kind of “Tweet Parenting” (I want royalties if you use that term now….) But, as you know if you follow me on twitter……I can’t do it.  Can’t type that way either.  Don’t really tweet – word limits and all.   Sigh.  So.  Something to work on.  No wonder my kids ignore me…..but I’m working on it, see?:

“Use  your words.”

“Please find your shoes.”

“Don’t hit your brother.”

“Bedtime!”

“PJ’s!”

“Teeth brushed, yay!”

“Pee! Good job!”

“Hop in bed!”

“Time for our song!”

“Do you want to hear the story?”

“OK! Sleep tight!”

“Back to bed.”

“Lights out!”

“Really, back to bed.”

“No cookies IN bed.”

“Lights out, that means off.”

“Sshh, your brother is sleeping.”

“Back to bed, means IN bed.”

“I’m going to bed now, you stay up then.”

“Lock up, eh?”

You see what I’m up against……like I said, a work in progress……