Disclaimer: I don't own Malcalm in the middle or Everybody Hates Crhis

Introduction—Rochelle's point of view

I got home from my daughter's appointment at the therapist and sank down into my chair. I couldn't help but cry. Julius came in right after me.

"Baby what's wrong," he asked gently

"I just got home from the doctor with Tonya," I cried

"Is she sick?"

"No it's nothing like that. She's got something called EESS"

"EESS? Extreme Emotional Sensitivity Syndrome?"

"Yes," I cried

"Baby why is that such a bad thing? We've always known Tonya was sensitive"

"Yeah but we don't know how to do tender parenting," I said, "at least I don't. I mean I always assumed Tonya would be like Drew and Chris"

"Well it looks like we need to go to parenting classes. Here's one… Positive Parenting. It starts tomorrow at 9 PM"

So we went to the class

Introduction—Lois's point of view

I love my boys but I swear they drive me crazy. I yell, I punish, I nag and nothing seems to work

"Hal," I said weary, "I think we need help in raising the boys"

"I agree," Hal admitted, "what if we signed up for a parenting class"

"I'm willing to try it"

We looked in the papers and found one.

"Positive parenting," Hal said, "well we've tried everything else"

"I dunno Hal. You really think it will work"

"It couldn't hurt to try"

"When does it start?"

"Tomorrow 9 PM"

So we went to the class

Day one—Rochelle's point of view

9 AM Chris wakes up with a bad attitude. Normally I would slap him into last night but I remembered the instructions from class. I got down to his level and calmly said, "Chris go back to bed and take a do over" When he asked me what a do over is I explained to him that he needs to go back to bed and wait until he's feeling better to get up. I knew it was nothing serious. He was just having a bad morning. I doubted it would work but he went back to sleep and woke up in a much better mood. I was amazed.

10:45 AM Drew decided to cook breakfast for the whole family which was really sweet except he almost burned the house down. Instead of getting angry I calmly talked to him though. I told him that I appreciated him helping cook breakfast but he's still a little too young and I would rather he wait till someone was there. He looked at me astonished and then said, "can I help you clean up momma". Now I was the one that was astonished. Maybe there really is something to this positive parenting.

11:00 AM Tonya needed help with her weekend homework. Normally I get frustrated while showing them their work but I had to keep reminding myself she's just a child. She's just a child. She's just a child. It took a half an hour longer then I hoped but we finally got there. I was so proud of her. I was proud of myself too

6:00 PM Tonya was playing with her food at dinner. I chose to ignore it and after a minute she stopped. Drew started throwing food at Tonya. I calmly looked at him and said, "Drew you have a choice. You can stop throwing food and you can stay with us or you can leave the table and come back when you're ready to behave" He chose to stop throwing food. Chris got angry and broke a glass. I calmly handed him the broom and the dustpan and asked his to sweep it up. He did so with no problem.

8:45 PM Bedtime. Tonya whined a little bit because she wanted to go to bed as late as Drew and Chris. I took a breath to calm down and I told her, "Tonya I know you wish you could go to bed later but you haven't been feeling well lately so you need your sleep. How about if I lay down with you for a little while" She agreed and she was out like a light. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.

Day one—Lois's point of view

1:30 PM: The boys started fighting again as usual. It drives me CRAZY. This time though I took control of the situation. I shut off all the electricity. They looked at me. Malcolm asked me what I was I doing. "Well obviously you boys need to calm down so until you can work it out you can't use any electricity" Reese argued that they needed to use the electrically. "Well then I guess you boys need to settle this quickly" They grumbled but they resolved the fight in 10 minutes.

9 o'clock PM: Dewy looked like he was going to burst into tears. I asked him what's wrong. "Malcolm and Reese say you don't love me," he explained. Normally I would have yelled at Malcolm and Reese but instead I turned my attention to Dewy this time. "I do love you Dewy," I said, "I know I get stressed out and yell a lot but I'm trying to work on that." Then I turned to the older boys. "Malcolm, Reese I don't want you teasing your brother anymore. The next time you do that you'll have to do his chores as well as your own for the day

Day two—Rochelle's point of view

5 o'clock PM: Drew stole Tonya's money that she was using to go on a school trip. Normally I was steel $45 off his behind. This time however I handled it much more calmly. First I called the woman I'd been partnered with, Lois and then I talked to Drew. I made him apologize and then I had him give back the money. I also told him that he was denied phone privileges until after he had done all of his chores and all of Tonya's chores for a month.

4:25 AM: Tonya woke Julius and I up. She had a nightmare. Normally I would tell her, "It's just a dream go back to bed" but Julius handled it today. He asked Tonya to tell him about her dream and let her sleep in between us for the rest of the night. It was annoying with Tonya's snoring but it was worth it to see her feeling better

Day two—Lois's point of view

8 o'clock AM: Francis woke up late for school again and missed the bus again. This time however instead of getting mad I held him accountable. I dropped him off at school but wouldn't give him an excuse note. "You'll have to take whatever consequences the school finds you should take," I told him, "I love you"

3:30: Dewy came home excited. He had gotten a C+ on his test. Normally I would just shrug it off but this time I praised him. "Honey I'm so proud of you," I told him, "You did your best and you managed to pull a higher grade then a C" Dewy was beaming

5:15: Francis came home in a mood. "Thanks a lot mom," he said, "if you had just given me the excuse note I wouldn't have had an hour and a half detention" Instead of getting angry I did some empathizing and he calmed down.

7:30: I let Dewy chose dinner that night. He picked hot dogs and French fries. I fried the fries but I boiled the dogs. They didn't notice and they enjoyed it as well. It was a fairly peaceful dinner. Yay positive parenting

8:15: Malcolm volunteered to help Reese with his homework. They worked on it for 45 minutes. I was very impressed with their cooperation.

9:00: Reese made fun of Dewy so I told him very calmly that tomorrow he would have to do all of Dewy's chores plus his own. He wasn't happy about it but he understood the consequences of his actions.

Day three—Rochelle's point of view

3:30 AM: Drew got sick and threw up. Normally I would have told him, "I told you that you shouldn't have eaten so much junk before you got to bed but in this case I simple comforted him gave him some warm milk and put him back to bed. He asked me if he could skip school tomorrow. I told him he could but I was going to have Tonya bring home his homework and he would be responsible for completing it.

5:25 AM: Chris got up early and started playing his music too loud. My original reaction would be to bang on the door and scream at him to turn off that DAMN music. It was definitely the reaction I wanted to have. But I also knew that it didn't work. Lets see… what did the class teach. I went to his room, shut the music off, made eye contact with him and I said, "Chris you may listen to your music and an appropriate noise level." I turned it down to the level I thought was appropriate. He didn't complain and he didn't turn it up.

6:00 AM I was so proud of Tonya. She set the table for breakfast without even being asked. I praised her. She was feeling so good about herself. I could tell that she was proud of her herself. I showed Julius what she did and he praised her too. I felt so good seeing her smile and feel good about herself.

1:00 PM Drew was getting board. He was begging me to do something with him and instead of assigning him chores I said, "tell you what baby, lets play a game" We played Monopoly and Clue followed by Life. Tonya got home with his homework and he settled down and completed it with no problems. This was a first. Maybe there really is something to positive parenting.

7:00 PM: Dinner went smoothly. No problems at all.

Last Day—Rochelle's point of view

Thank goodness for positive parenting. I'm definitely going to continue it

Last Day—Lois's point of view

Positive parenting was definitely a success. I'm definitely going to continue it