The next morning, very bright and early at her usual 6:00-6:30AM wake-up time, Evalyn was by my bedside asking for her star rather than tugging on Daddy's arm for chocolate milk and a TV show. Rats. I hadn't foreseen this arrangement interfering with my sleep-in time. I'm sure Matt was smiling to himself as he rolled over and put a pillow over his head.
But it's worked. With a few longer than usual tuck in times and a late nap incident, there are no more pleas of "Stay with me mommy! Sleep with me daddy!" Let's hope this continues. It's been very cute how she'll pick out which star she'll color in the next morning. There was one morning where I didn't get up to supervise and she sneaked in an extra star. That was a little tricky to deal with the following morning.
Today we went to get her prize. She was eager with excitement, but when we got there she suddenly decided she wanted sidewalk chalk and crayons and about everything else she laid her eyes on. I felt funny saying, "NO! You have to get a My Little Pony because that's what was on your chart!" It came across more as, "Okay, you may get the sidewalk to share with Henry and we'll get the Pony for you." Phew. Kids and the toy section are rarely a pleasant experience.
6 comments:
I love motivation charts. They are so perfect for something like this!
My kids have been playing with their identical-to-your sidewalk chalk every day lately! I love it.
Gotta love charts. I am quite a fan. Hopefully it sticks!
I have a love-hate relationship with charts because I always wonder when they should graduate from them. Like after she stays in bed for 2 or 3 charts' worth and she's gotten the rewards, where do you draw the line and wean her from it? And I always wonder what I should do when I have weaned them from the chart and then they regress and are just as bad as when you start the chart. Is it okay to start the chart again with rewards? Or is that just reinforcing their bad habit? Just something to think about. Parenting is so hard. :\
My method of keeping Savannah in bed at that age was a little more harsh. She was so possesive of everything and had a bunch of toys on her bed so I told her that if she wanted to keep her toys with her she can't get out of bed. If she did get out I would take a toy away until she stayed in bed for 5minutes. This worked pretty good except sometimes she would come out right about the 5 minute mark to ask for her toy back. :) I use this same method today except it's usually, "If I hear a bunch of talking and noise coming from this room..." (3 in the same room) (Sorry this was so long!)
I love the term "behavior modification". We just started potty training and Sophie gets potty treats when she uses the toilet. I have always thought of it as bribing, but "behavior modification" sounds like the more responsible thing to do ;).
I still use "token economies" as the educational professionals say with Sara. I have to switch them up, but they do their job. I'm glad Evalyn had her stars colored in-success is a sweet thing!
Oh I love that last shot of Evalyn with her pony! Speaks volumes. BTW, if you use foil star stickers instead of ones they color in, you won't have any of those sneaky mishaps--as long sa the star stickers are out of her reach!
Stacy brings up some good points about the star chart. With Ben we tried gradually increasing the amount of work he had to do to get the prize (started with seven days, then ten days, then 14, etc.) hoping it would just become a habit after awhile and he would not need the chart. But no such luck. Regression set in pretty quickly when the star chart was gone. I think I'll look into the token system Kellie mentioned...
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