Why is it that we parents always fall back on negative reinforcement to get the training job done? Or maybe when I say “we parents” I really just mean myself. Maybe all you other Mommies are all about the positive reinforcement, encouragement, rewards, pats on the back, and the rest.

My husband’s primary love language is words of encouragement; he’s awesome with encouraging and motivating positively. He is also a very compassionate and giving person. I am, well, let’s just say that mercy and generosity are not my strengths. Heh.
So I tend to be pretty black-and-white, and I tend to be kind of unsympathetic, and I tend to just dole out punishment “as needed” until I get tired of doling out punishment, at which point I resort to threatening and repeating. Bad cycle.

Well. It occurred to me that training, teaching, even (gasp) parenting can be a positive experience if I take a little initiative. Basically I got tired of being the NO woman and I wanted to set things up so I got to hand out rewards instead of, oh, spankings. Voila.

The chart was born: in this case, “Mara’s Big Girl Skills Chart.” Mara is 3 1/2 and all about being a big girl and doing things herself… unless it’s bedtime, and she’s tired, and I tell her to get her pajamas on. Or it’s morning, and she just got up, and I tell her to get dressed. Or playtime is over, and there are toys everywhere, and I tell her to clean up. Suddenly that big-girl independence isn’t so appealing.

So I made the chart. It has five big rectangles, and each one has a little description and lots of space for stickers. I don’t know about your 3 1/2 year old little girl, but mine loves stickers. And even more than stickers, she loves new toys, surprises, treats: happies, I call them. So I taped the chart on her closet door and I told her the deal: everytime you complete one of these things by yourself, you earn one sticker. When you earn five stickers, you get a happy.

That night we were getting close to bedtime so I started rounding up kids for the pajama routine.
Me: “Mara, time for bed! Go potty and get your pjs on!”
Mara: “Mooooommmmmmyyyy, I think, I think, I think you need help me.”
Me: “Okay, Mara, I will be happy to help you. But if you go potty and get your pjs on all by yourself, you get a sticker! If I help you, you don’t get a sticker.”
Mara: “Oh. Ummmm, I think, I think I can do it all by self.”
Me: (smiling gleefully) “Okay, Mara!”

And she did “all by self” go potty and get pajamas on. The next day we had a similar conversation about getting dressed; and she did, “all by self,” get dressed. And then put on her socks and shoes. And then cleaned up her toys. And then got ready for bed… and by that time, had earned enough stickers to get a prize which was a new can of Play-Dough. Best $0.84 I ever spent.

I think she enjoyed the whole process almost as much as I did…

Just today I updated her chart, which is covered with stickers. She’s gotten so good at the items on the chart that it’s time to move on to some more challenging items. By the way, this whole concept worked great for a little night-time issue we were having: every night (or, more accurately, eeeeeearly every morning), Mara would appear in our bedroom. And want to sleep with us. Usually I just let her, or threw a blanket on the floor and told her to sleep there. It was getting old, though, so I put “sleeping in my own bed all night” on the chart. Every night when I tucked her in, I would remind her: “If you sleep in your own bed all night, you’ll get a sticker on your chart in the morning!”
And in the morning, if she was in our bed, I’d say, “Oh, too bad we can’t give you a sticker this morning!” If she had stayed in her own bed, she got a sticker and a hug and a high-five and a great display of congratulations. I think it took about a week. She now stays in her bed all night almost every night.

Chart 1:
“I got dressed all by myself!”
“I put on my socks and shoes by myself!”
“I cleaned up my toys!”
“I got ready for bed by myself!”
“I slept in my own bed all night!”

Chart 2:
“Clear dishes and wipe counter after a meal.”
“Get dressed and straighten my bedroom.”
“Put away toys/clean up my area.”
“Do my chores and/or help Mommy.”
“Get ready for bed and pick up the bathroom.”

We’ll see how Chart 2 goes. I’m hoping we can graduate from just getting dressed to getting dressed and NOT leaving half the contents of the closet on the floor… Meanwhile, I need to go find some more stickers.

Image courtesy of Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr.

Yesterday morning, Robbie slid off the edge of my bed, trying to climb in. He looked up at me and said, “Sowwy!” A little later, he stumbled over the threshold: “Sowwy!” After church he was playing and I heard someone say, “Oh, how cute! He said sorry when he fell down.”

Hmmm. Apologies are important, and necessary, and most people don’t offer them enough and do a sloppy job of them. Saying “my bad” doesn’t count. But over-apologizing is another beastie. Why is Robbie saying sorry for everything? Because he hears his Mommy saying sorry for everything. Why does his Mommy say sorry for everything? She’s not sure.

Low self-esteem? Southern courtesy? Overly developed sense of propriety?

I don’t really know, and intense self-analysis is usually a waste of my time. For some reason or for many reasons, I apologize for things that are beyond my control. I apologize when I feel uncomfortable, when I’m sympathizing, when I’m uncertain. I say I’m sorry when I should say excuse me. I say I’m sorry when I should be silent.

And here it is coming from my little boy’s lips. He’s smiling. He’s not upset. He’s just saying “Sowwy” a lot these days. Children are the mirrors of our personalities, our quirks, our habits. Whatever we throw out there they soak up and reproduce in some form. All of a sudden I feel like a bug pinned on the microscope. I don’t know much about my ugly insides, but they are about to be displayed and there’s nothing I can do about it. Except cringe. And say, “Sorry.”

Listen to what Charlotte Mason says:

“When a mother allows a little trespass to go, unchecked and unmarked, the child has learned to believe that he has nothing to overcome but his mother’s disinclination; if she choose to let him do this and that, there is no reason why she should not; he can make her choose… and if his mother does what she chooses, of course he will do what he chooses, if he can; and henceforward the child’s life becomes an endless struggle to get his own way.

Let the child perceive that his parents are law-compelled as well as he, that they simply cannot allow him to do the things which have been forbidden, and he submits with the sweet meekness which belongs to his age.”

{Charlotte Mason, Home Education, pp. 14-15}

We all live under the law.

I’m not talking about the speed limit, though that kind of law matters, too. I’m talking about the big, divine, universal laws: the laws we know inherently, though some of us choose to ignore them and at times, we all fail to uphold them. Think in terms of the Ten Commandments, or, better yet, what Jesus said about the law:

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.

{Mark 12:30-31)

We parents are to live under the law, and we need to teach our children that the rules we have are not just random ideas we come up with and then impose upon them arbitrarily. Sure, some rules may be: “No shoes in the house” doesn’t have much of a moral implication. But the rules that really matter do have a moral implication.

Do a little digging and find the principles behind the rules, and teach them to your children. I’ve made a simple change when I discipline our children. Instead of saying, “No, Robbie, don’t hit your sister,” I say, “No, Robbie, I can’t let you hit your sister. It is not right.”

Does that matter? Maybe not all the time. But in the end, yes: because we want our children to grow up learning principles that give them wisdom for life, not legalistic rules, we need to help them to understand that law is universal and that we, their parents, answer to a higher authority. Everybody has to obey.

I realized today that the reason I most often get frustrated with my children is that I am frustrated with myself. I’ve gotten behind, I’ve lost focus, I’m having a bad hair day… For one reason or another, I’m not meeting my personal goals. I’m not being consistent and diligent with myself, and that becomes (too quickly) me not being consistent and diligent with my children. And how quickly that escalates into lots of whining, lots of nagging, lots of tears, lots of frustration. The kids don’t do so well, either…

It is when I am frustrated that I don’t notice the horrible things I am teaching my children.

It’s Never Your Fault.

They fall and get an owie and we say, “Oh that mean old table.” Why not “Hey, watch your head when you crawl under the dinner table”? Wouldn’t that be better advice, and help them avoid another head-table collision in the future?

You Always Get To Choose.

We do this a million times a day. Red cup or blue cup? Pink pajamas or purple pajamas? Crackers or pretzels? Juice or milk? Up or down? The Alphabet Song or The Itsy Bitsy Spider Song? Markers or crayons? We’re trying to be nice. We like watching their little decision-making mechanism at work.

We think it’s cute, but we end up  creating a whole lot of unnecessary confusion for our children, hassle for ourselves, and in the end a child who expects that, always, in every situation, he gets to make a choice.

Real life, of course, is full of choices but also full of situations in which there are no options. Pain, hurt, injury, Speedos, work, loneliness, heartburn, hardship, grief, traffic, betrayal, bad hair days, rain, nosy neighbors, PMS, aging, IRS, taxes, polyester, death: you can avoid some, but you certainly can’t avoid all. The only choice that always exists is the choice of how we respond.

We would bless our children to teach them the art and skill of choosing happiness no matter what, choosing acceptance when there is no other option, choosing gratitude… Those are good choices to know how to make. Choosing red or blue never really helped anyone, even when it comes down to politics.

Life Is Fair.

Everyone gets equal portions of cake passed out on equally pretty plates. Siblings endure the same bedtime even when the age differs significantly. We count to make sure they all have the same number of presents, within the same price range, the same opportunities, experiences, advantages, and on and on. I don’t need to point out why this is a stupid move.

Anyone who has experienced life beyond the cradle knows it isn’t fair. That we long for justice, that we feel justice should prevail, is true. This is why we love movies with a clear-cut hero and villain and you-know-who gets what’s coming to him in the end. Rah rah rah for truth, justice, and the American way! We have ideals, but we also have reality.

Everybody gets hangnails and indigestion, not just the bad guys. Sometimes the nicest people have the crummiest lives. Sometimes the hardest workers end up the poorest. Why we feel like we should coddle our children into thinking otherwise is beyond me. Of course, it’s nice to be even and equal, and it’s nice that we can smooth some things out for kids, but we parents make a career of it.

Right and Wrong Are Relative.

We daily, hourly instill in them a principle of morals by preference: if it feels good (at the time) then it’s right, if it feels otherwise then it’s wrong. It’s by our own failure to be consistent with discipline – for ourselves and for them – that we pound this into their little brains. No wonder they wind up confused about God, truth, right, wrong, professional sports, and Santa Claus.

The good news is that love covers a multitude of sin. It is our own sin that needs covering, when it comes to being a parent. “We’re not ready for a baby yet,” I’ve heard young couples say. Heavens no. They’re not ready. No one ever is.

How can you be ready to be a perfect moral example, to wear spit-up like a badge of honor, to second-guess every truth you’ve ever known, to realize that your failures directly influence your child, to give up sleep, sex, sanity, selfishness? You’re never ready; you just go into it blind and deaf and mute and come out of it seeing and hearing and singing (sometimes yelling). Parenting is the strangest thing a person can ever do. I highly recommend it.

Images courtesy of octavioags,  minotaurus, David Knox, felly1000. Quote from The Training of Children in the Christian Family, by Luthur Allan Weigle, p. 14.

Being consistent with children is one of the most difficult parts of parenting. We’re tired, we’re distracted, the bad behavior doesn’t seem like a big deal right now. We wait until it becomes a big deal and then we erupt. We train our kids to mess with the Mommy-volcano, to push until more steam comes out the top, and then to beat it for the hills when the lava starts spewing.

Isn’t that a great picture of happy home life?

Consistency Is Key

Consistency makes everybody happier. Even if consistency means more discipline for the kids, and it usually does, kids are more secure, more at ease, and more content when they know that the boundaries exist and that they stay in the same place, all the time, no matter what.

And mommies are happier, too. When we have a plan, when we make decisions, and when we stick to what we’ve said, there is peace. We feel calm and we deal with things in a calm manner. This is far better than letting ourselves build up frustration by not dealing with the problems, then overreacting. You know it’s true… We’ve all done it and we’ve all regretted it.

Why We Let Things Slide

The tricky part is the day in, day out of being consistent. Life doesn’t stand still. It’s easy to let things slide because there is other stuff to take care of at the moment. It’s also easy to overlook misbehavior or disobedience because it doesn’t seem like a big deal. We get tired of being the bad guy. We’re the ones home all the time with the little ones and sometimes it’s just nicer (we think) to let it go for the moment, or the morning, or the whole day. Daddy can deal with it all when he gets home.

Rules of the House

Here’s the answer: house rules. Sit down with your husband and talk about what matters most in your home and with your children. Don’t make a long list; five items is plenty to deal with on any given day. What behaviors are driving you crazy? What do your children most need training in? What issue tempts you to be inconsistent most often?

Your house rules will need to be age appropriate, of course. Make them simple, declarative statements, either stating the facts – “We don’t hit each other” – or making a direct command – “No hitting.” They can be general – “Share with each other” or more specific – “No arguing over which color cup to use at dinner time.”

Once you make the rules, decide on an appropriate consequence for each rule if it is broken. There could be the same consequence for every rule or a specific consequence for each one. It depends on your parenting style, your kids, and what your rules are.

Make Yourself Accountable

Now the final and most important step: make a sign, a list, a poster board, a print-out, something with the list of rules and the list of consequences. You could include rewards, too, for a day of “no rule breaking.” Everybody loves positive reinforcement and then you get to be the good guy!

Hang that list of rules in an obvious place. Go over it with your children. The younger the children, the more often you need to go over it. For teenagers, once is enough. More will come across as nagging.

Once it’s up, you have to live it. Failure to be consistent will be obvious and embarrassing for you, and will deteriorate your authority so don’t risk it. Stick to your guns. Even if you let other things slide, the things that aren’t on the list, be consistent without exception when it comes to the house rules. You’ll find that as you’re consistent on those few items, the other misbehaviors will diminish. Consistency in one area has a way of effecting all areas.

It’s up to you how long you stick to this particular list. You can add rules as needed or make up an entirely new list every week or every month so that you can work on different areas. The whole time you are using this list to train your kids, you are training yourself to be consistent. And that makes life easier and home a lot more peaceful and a lot more fun. Beats a volcano eruption any day.

Images courtesy of z2amiller and CJ Sorg and roland.