Snow Day, well, not really

Last Wednesday the girls were out of school for snow. Well, they were actually out because of a prediction of snow. The snow fell for about 45 minutes that morning and then it was gone within an hour I think. They insisted on going out though. Grace scraped together a snowball from the snow that accumulated on the upside down swimming pool in the yard. It is in our freezer right now. :)

Lyla wouldn't put clothes on or a coat. As you can see in the pictures below, she actually went out in her pajamas alone. I've been reading a child discipline book called Parenting with Love and Logic. It says that you should let the logical consequences of a childs' actions teach them the lesson rather then me trying to make the decisions for them all of the time so they won't have to suffer the consequences. This works, sometimes, if the child cares about the consequence. This winter we have had a battle over wearing a winter coat. Lyla wants to wear a little, thin, sweatshirt jacket that she got for Christmas because it is Spiderman (thanks Aunt Laura, she loves your gift!). Reesi doesn't want to wear a coat at all because they are all "too poofy". Love and Logic says to inform her of the weather outside and then let her decide whether to wear a coat or not. It says that a child will realize that she needs a coat once they spend one outing freezing to death and the next time she goes out she'll choose to wear a coat and be warm. Not our girls. Reesi has just started wearing a coat in the last couple of weeks! She's gone most of the winter wearing nothing! Lyla still wears her thin jacket. So on the "snow" day I let her decide what she needed to wear outside. She went out with her pajamas alone. She came right back in for what I thought was a sensible outfit for snow play. I thought the consequences were working. No, she just wanted a hat and gloves! Needless to say, their time outside didn't last very long. She might be cold but she's learning to make her own decisions. :)