OK! I'm going to try and be more consistent in blogging (for all 5 of you =). Life has gotten so full and busy and I am so non technical blogging has fallen off the list of things to do, but with summer, and with a tiny bit of extra free time, I'm going to give this another try. I'm reminding my current self that my future self will thank me!
I'm going to do a whole family catch up soon, but for now I'm going to talk about our behavior charts. My sister, Abby, is majoring in ABA (applied behavioral analysis) so , with mom, they have been learning a lot of cool ways of working with children. I have also been reading and praying a lot about how to continue to grow and teach my "children in the way they should go." We do time outs and spankings and for the most part they have been effective for us. We work very hard at not disciplining in anger and helping the kids to understand why what they have done is wrong. It is also a huge challenge to be consistent with punishment when I am severely outnumbered...I often will forget to discipline or can't when we are out in public. We will continue to use spankings and time outs when necessary, but as I have been praying and reading I feel like I want my children to choose to do the right thing because they will receive a positive response. As they get older and more independent I want them to choose to please the Lord because they love Him and want to make him happy, not because they are fearful of Him (obviously I want them to have a holy fear..you know what I'm getting at!) So, we made some charts.
Let me back up. This was all catapulted into action because through the year my other sister, Whitney, lived with us. It was a huge help. I rarely had to take all the kids on errands and if I did I had an extra pair of hands or I could leave them in the car with a movie on and whit! She has gone to serve at a camp this summer, so I'm on my own! Well, on Tuesday I was running into Publix for a few things. The kids, for the most part, did great...until the checkout line. Picture me loading the conveyor belt, the cashier trying to chat, Jude standing in the cart and screaming, Cole running away, cooper asking for something for the 100th time, and then Bailey Kate spilled my whole 32oz diet coke ALL over the floor. Cue staring by all around. I was so embarrassed I started to walk away with my groceries WITHOUT paying! UGH! I got in the car and started planning my charts!
OK, so we have 2 sets of charts. One for obedience and one for errand/store behavior. For the behavior chart EVERY time the kids obey (EVERY) they get a sticker. Even for the smallest thing. The goal is that it will become second nature to obey without question for even the smallest thing. Once they get to 30 stickers they get to go to the dollar store and buy 1 thing. You can use anything that makes your kids tick. Then, once they fill up their whole chart (about 150 spots) they get to go to Target and buy something for 10.00 or less. We are on day 4 and it is like I have different children. I ask one time, they obey they get a sticker, they don't obey they don't get a sticker....we've given out a lot of stickers.
For the errand/store chart they have a list of behaviors I expect...don't whine, don't ask for anything in the store, no fighting, stand next to or hold onto the cart, etc. We went shopping yesterday for over 2 hours to multiple stores and it was AWESOME! I gave a few warnings to remind them of what they were working towards. It was so nice to enjoy my time and not feel like I was losing control or wanting to scream at my kids. I bring the charts with me EVERYWHERE we go so that the reward is immediate. My goal, obviously, is to stay consistent. It is so easy to lose consistency when their behavior starts to get better, but I keep reminding myself I want this to be a long term change in my kids...I'm trying to modify their behavior. Here are some pictures of our charts. You can pray with me that we can stay consistent in this new challenge!
Don't judge my inability to make a straight line =)
