For the Love of Sanity

I'm having a hard time concentrating on an answer, what with my children having a race on the couch. ;) Honestly.

What did you do the FIRST time they did it? Nothing? Laughed because it was cute?
Every time you catch them jumping/walking on furniture, take away the privilege of using that piece of furniture for the next 24 hours. If they jump on the bed, then that night, they sleep on the floor. Not in a sleeping bag, not on an air mattress, but on the bare floor with just a blanket to cover up with. If they walk on the couch, then they don't get to sit on it until the next day. If they jump on the bed twice in one day, they sleep on the floor for two nights. If they walk on the couch twice in one day, they don't get to sit on it for two days.

I'm thinking about my parents, and my friends' parents, who could freeze a kid in his/her tracks with 'the look." Somewhere along the way parents lost that super power.

Before I saw SH's response, I was going to write the same thing - remove the furniture. Every time they do it. Pretty soon there will be NO furniture. They will get the message loud and clear.

Stop being a mother who lets her kids walk all over her. Step up and get the message across.

Sending you strength~
Dawn

How the heck do you remove the furniture? There is NO WAY IN HELL that I would remove any furniture. How is that teaching them?

The only problem here is that YOU are not being consistent and firm in your parenting.

Get strict or before you know it, you will wish it was only furniture you were dealing with.

Jump on it with them and enjoy their childhood together?

:)

How old are your children? Could be doing this was OK at 1 and 2 and now they're too big by your estimate? So they've learned that it's OK and don't understand why it's not now.

You have to be focused and consistent to change a behavior. It helps if you give them an alternative. Take a week and focus just on stopping it. Each and every time someone walks on the furniture, jumps from the couch, etc. send them to their room, give them a time out, decide on one consequence and do it everytime.

At the same time tell them where they can run and jump. Have you tried sending them outside to play? Be sure to provide plenty of opportunities to run and jump. Take them to the park, to an indoor playground.

Have a rule that there is to be no rough housing in the house and enforce it every time it happens in the same way. Each and every time.

No yelling. No warnings after you first tell them it's going to happen. Do not get upset. Just be firm and consistent.

Or, decide to not fight this battle. My daughter decided that until the kids get older there will be no new furniture. Breakable items are put up out of the way. I don't know what you mean by broken things. If it's furniture that's being broken then this is not the way to go. It would make me think that you have a more difficult problem with kids being too hyper active and aggressive which would require a different focus.

For real? I let natural consequences kick in. I was CONSTANTLY telling my girls not to jump and stand and hurl each other around on the couches. I gave warnings. I was calm. I was the perfect mother. I cracked the whip and got loud. I meted out punishments. I lost my temper. I was a horrible mother.

Then I gave up and decided that if they weren't going to listen, I was going to put couch covers on the couches and whatever happened would happen.

They each took turns getting hurt in one way or another.

"MOM! I got hurt falling on my head off the couch!"
"Then you shouldn't have been doing handstands and butt bumping your sister at the same time."
"You should have told me it was dangerous!"
::bllink blink::
"Well, you got hurt. Are you going to do that again?"
"No."
"Good."

Remove the furniture from the room.

But then again, my friend's son, will even climb the jalousie windows.

Use duct tape.

Tell them, that anything they mess up or break, THEY will clean up/pick up and fix. Themselves.

Remove the furniture? Umm, NO!! That teaches them nothing.

YOU need to be firm and consistent with the rules. My kids are 5, 7, and 9, and wouldn't dare to jump on furniture. We have a trampoline in the back yard, that is for jumping...not my couches or beds. They learned this from the time they were little. So if you don't make an stick to rules, you are creating your own monster's.

If my kids now do anything on my furniture they aren't supposed to do, they are off of it for the day, and they know that's the rule, no bending.

Get firm with your kids. That will solve this problem and many others down the road.

Discipline them EVERY time, physically remove them from the furniture... something tells me this was probably an allowed behavior at some point in time. My kids were taught from infancy not to stand or jump on furniture, so it's never been an issue, I'm just not fond of my things being destroyed. Time to crack down hard EVERY time.

I send mine outside when they do stuff like that.

How old are your children?

Mine would always get up on the beds after they were made and then they were all wrinkly.

They started making their own beds at five. I would make them practice getting the covers smooth. One day I went in to my son's room and sat on the bed to talk with him...and he went "hey, you messed up my bed!" That was when it clicked for him...

The sofa wasn't jumping it was taking all the cushions off and building things. So finally one night I made them put all the cushions back on correctly...it took them over an hour to get the cushions on in the right place and with the seams the right way (they are pretty big cushions). I thought this would stop them...nope they were back off the next day...so I told them, you have toput them back on. Okay they replied, we know how to do it now. And they did...so I gave up that fight becasue it was ME having to pu them back on that made me mad not them playing with them.

Either you will have to come up with a really good punishment for each time they jump...like no tv or something and do it everytime they jump. OR natural consequinces will teach them, when they break an arm or need stiches. I know of four kids who have broken an arm or gotten stiches from sofa/bed jumping. Good luck!!

OMG, I was actually going to post this exact same thing today!!!!! My 5 and 3 yr old do this constantly! My three yr old broke his arm falling off the sofa when he was two. One day after he was all healed he was jumping the sofa, again, my mom said 'hey, don't u remember you broke your arm that way?' The lil' stinker held his arm out and said 'cast off'. So I clearly have no idea how to get the doodlebugs to stop!!