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Child Training 101: Positive Parenting (For a Change) Comments Off

Filed under the kids
Written by Annie on 22nd Dec -09

lollipops

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.

How You Can Train Your Kids to Be Helpful 1

Filed under the kids
Written by Annie on 21st May -09

p8200002“In this country, we are apt to let children romp away their existence, till they get to be thirteen or fourteen [or twenty-three or twenty-seven]. This is not well. It is not well for the purses and patience of parents; and it has a still worse effect on the morals and habits of children. Begin early is the great maxim for everything in education. A child of six years can be made useful; and should be taught to consider every day lost in which some little thing has not been done to assist others.” {Lydia Marie Child; The American Frugal Housewife.}

Begin early.

Even 1 and 2 and 3 years old. As soon as children start crawling, have them come and go where you direct. Teach them to help you by staying where you put them, in a particular area (on a blanket, on a rug, in a room with you), or by following along with you as you move through the house. If they understand the mental and physical coordination of crawling or scooting, they likewise can understand continue reading…

Novel Idea: Self-Sufficient Children 1

Filed under the kids
Written by Annie on 26th Mar -09

As Michael Pearl says, My goal as a parent is to work myself out of a job. Obviously, with children as young as 3 and 1 1/2 years old, self-sufficiency is incomplete at best. There’s more they can’t do than things they can do by themselves. But we underestimate our children’s abilities, and we often handicap them by not equipping them with skills to do what they are capable of.

Skills + Responsibility = Happy Toddlers

It’s our job as parents to assess our children’s abilities and teach them skills so that they can handle as much responsibility as possible for every age. Children like being responsible and independent. Every move I make toward giving them more autonomy is welcomed by my children. Mara loves going potty by herself, getting her own socks and pajamas and underwear from the shelves, folding her blankets. Wick likes being able to get his own sippie cup full of water from the kitchen table, have a drink, and put it back.  It’s a good and natural growth that eases tension between parents and children and moves us all toward the adult-equal relationship, which is the outcome of successful parenting.

Adulthood Begins with Infancy

My top priority right now is teaching my two children how to deal with each other: playing together, sharing, helping each other, and working out conflicts. Can they do it all by themselves? No, of course not. But there’s a lot they can learn and handle on their own, and in the process they gain skills for life.

I’m okay with being called on to help resolve a conflict or protect personal property rights when my children are 3 and 1 1/2, or 7 and 9; I’m not so okay with that still happening when they’re 13 and 15, or 22 and 24. At some point, my children have to quit needing me and they only way to ensure that happens is to teach them what I already know. It’s the passing on of wisdom and knowledge. It’s the teaching and training that occurs every day. If it doesn’t happen from day one, there will be no magical day when my child becomes an adult. He will just become an awkward, co-dependent, adult-sized child.

Assessing Their Abilities

So how do we figure out what our children are capable of and then equip them for those tasks? For me, a certain level of annoyance is a good key; I don’t mind making their meals, helping with baths, and those other things that they cannot yet do for themselves. But when I find myself getting irritated over any particular repeated request, it’s usually a sign that training needs to take place: my children need to learn how to handle this issue on their own, or else I need to deal with it in another, proactive way.

I realized today, after the hundredth “No pwease Bubba! Moooooommmmmmy!” that this sibling

Photo by Synergy Photography

Photo by Synergy Photography

interaction is a very basic area for self-sufficiency. My children will be interacting with each other pretty much constantly for their entire childhoods. I need them to be able to handle much of this interaction on their own, especially when our third baby is born (due any day now). I’m not going to become an absentee parent, by any means; but I am going to teach them everything they can understand right now. Tomorrow they can learn more. This is the goal of each day.

Teaching Skills for New Responsibilities

So we are working on a skill set for this daily challenge. It includes Mars learning to say “Please, no” to her little brother when he does something she doesn’t like (rather than whining about it until I intervene); it also includes Wick, as young as he is, learning that a “Please, no” from his sister must be respected. They are both learning how to take turns. Today Mara learned how to come to Mommy (instead of hollering across the room or house), put her hand on my arm, and say, “Excuse me, Mommy,” when Wick doesn’t respond to her “Please, no” request. So now she knows how to appropriately ask for help when needed; Wick will learn this pretty quickly, as well.
The other skill we’re working on is for Mara to learn to walk away when Wick gets too rough. Yes, she’s older and bigger, but she’s much gentler in comparison to her rough-and-tumble little brother. He likes to climb all over her, tickle, snuggle, and roll around on the floor. She likes that too, sometimes; sometimes it’s too much, so she is learning to simply get up and move to another area when she needs some space.

Toddler Skills Become Life Skills

These skills translate from the literal toddler application to life lessons for all the relationships my children will encounter as they grow older.
There will always be people doing things we don’t like; we have to know how to address those issues politely, appeal to authority, accept differences, and discern when it’s time to clear out and get some space.

I want my children to be capable, happy, wise adults. Everyday is my chance to move them a little closer to that place.

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