Some things that work for me

Two things I thought I might share that have worked for my two kids that are having a hard time giving up control are:

Dreamcatchers- my kids have nightmares. They have dreams that their biological parents or someone else is going to take them away. Some of them have made me into this superheroine that can fight them off by kicking butt and scaring them but some of them still struggle with the dreams. I bought some dreamcatcher kits at the dollar store and it was a project we did (this past week with all our free time. lol). They assembled them and we hung them up over their beds.

The verdict-- Poufy said "She's sleeping IN a log now that the dreamcatcher is there to catch ALL her bad dreams. " lol

The boy- His is broken it doesn't work. After some discussion, we determined he's sleeping backwards on his bed and his feet are under the dreamcatcher therefore making the dreamcatcher an odorcatcher. He was going to sleep with his head under the dreamcatcher and let me know if he still was having bad dreams. He hasn't said anything about bad dreams.

The second thing has to do with time outs. Time outs = tantrums for my kids. At least for Poufy before we started treating her like she was two. The boy started to tantrum when I thought about hockey. I reminded him when we went to see our local team play. I asked him to remember what happened to the players when they got in a fight. He said they went to the penalty box. I emphasized for a time out to cool off. I asked him if when they were in the penalty box did they cry and throw a tantrum. I saw his face light up. He got it. He said no.

So I asked him why does he if he's in time out and his room is like the penalty box for him to cool off and then come back and join the "game".

No tantrums for time outs since then. If I could just think of something else to head off tantrums that I'm not even expecting. Hmmm.... Any suggestions?