We’ve been having a few issues around our house lately; with obedience, kindness, respect, and just general behaviour. After all my talk about wanting to treasure my kids more, they decided to freak out on me and be completely monstrous for a streak of several days.
On top of that, Miss I decided to continue the 1 year old girl tradition in our house and break out with Roseola. This is by far one of my favorite childhood illnesses. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. As soon as the rash showed up last night I wanted to throw a party! It’s not that I ever want my girls to be sick, but when your baby has a 103 temperature for 3 days, you (or at least I) start picturing some REALLY HORRIBLE results. So when that faint, lacy little rash starts to appear and you know the worst of the illness is already done, it’s ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS!!!
Sorry. I’m really not crazy.
Anyways, back to my story. The older two were being horrendous, the baby was sick, and Mommy was FREAKING OUT. Daddy came home and got Mommy under control, and then I started to think reasonably, and decided I needed to do something that’s been on my mind for a long time.
Before I tell you about it, let me first tell you my history on this matter. I’ve never been a big fan of discipline charts, rewards systems, etc. I don’t know why, no particularly intelligent reason or moral conviction, they just don’t really appeal to me. It’s silly, because in every other aspect of my life I’m all about lists and outlines. I don’t know what my problem is. Anyway, I’ve had some ideas lately, and had been feeling a need for some concrete rules that are in black and white so they can’t be wiggled around and overlooked just for now.
So this is what I came up with
I know this is kind of hard to see, but basially what I did was make a chart with a bunch of silly clip art and stickers, exlaining what “sweet girls” do, and what “naughty girls” do.
For example, “sweet girls obey without complaining…naughty girls argue and talk back”. I basically thought of (with some help from Hombre of course) all of the things that we’ve been having a problem with and wrote out the problematic behaviour alongside the desired behaviour. So we’re not just saying “DON’T DO THIS”, we’re saying “do this instead”. For added emphasis, I made the sweet side of the chart very colorful and happy with lots of hearts, rainbows and butterflies (the advantage of having all girls), and made the naughty side kind of grumpy looking.
So, this afternoon we sat down, and Daddy explained all of the rules on the chart and discussed them to make sure they were understood.
Then we introduced how this is going to work. I can’t decide if we’re being wonderful or awful, but we’ve created a reward system.
Every time they are seen doing something that sweet girls do, they get two beans to put in their cup. Everytime they do something naughty, two are taken away. Now the purpose of the beans was a debate for a little while. We talked about if they could fill their cups then there would be a big reward at the end, but Daddy felt it was more important for them to learn that the fun things they do every day are priveleges, and they needed to behave or they would lose them.
So I made a list of about a dozen things that could easily be given or taken without ruining our lives, like watching a movie, playing in the swimming pool, or playing dress-up. I assigned a value to each of these, anywhere from two to five beans, and anytime they want to do one of them, they have to hand over their beans.
I have to say they were very excited about all of this, so we’ll see how it goes. So far I can see that’s it’s going to make me need to be a lot more attentive and aware all the time of what they’re doing. But I feel like it’s a good thing because it will help us start looking for the good behaviour, not just always pointing out the bad.
So, I’ll let you know how this goes. Maybe in a week the chart will be in the dumpster. But hopefully not. Maybe in a week we’ll all be a little bit happier, because Mommy and Daddy are doing a better job.;)
