Our oldest is 4 1/2, she'll be 5 in July, and she's really been testing boundaries lately. She's a lot like me in that she is very sensitive and her strongest love language right now is "words of affirmation", she needs to be told "Good job", "I love you", "I'm so proud of you", etc; but she can also be a tad stubborn and a little dramatic (she obviously gets that from my husband. Just kidding, that part is from me too...). So the other day, I caught myself scolding her for the eleventy billionth time that day, and suddenly, I heard myself through her ears. I felt like I did nothing but gripe at her and I hated that, and if I feel that way, how is it making her feel? I was doing the exact opposite of what I know makes her feel loved. I knew that something had to change and that something was my attitude towards my daughter. This sort of behavior from an adult towards a child can be very damaging, not just in the moment, but in years to come - especially when that child needs love and words of affirmation like they need food and water. Psychology has proven over and over that reward systems do a much better job of encouraging good behavior than constant negative comments or physical punishment, but I (and many others) still believe that we need to teach our kids about consequences as well, because the world certainly will when they're adults. I've seen several posts on Pinterest that advocate consequence jars, which I think are a great idea, so I took the idea and modified it a bit for our family. Here's a picture of what our system looks like:
The Strike Jar, the Good Job Treat Basket, and the Good Job Jar.
Many of the systems only include a consequence jar and one of the most popular consequences is having to do a household chore. I see household chores as a part of every day life and using them as a punishment can backfire, so I didn't include any chores in our "Strike!" jar. I also think rewarding good behavior is just as important, if not more important, than disciplining bad behavior, so I've included a "Good Job!" jar in our system. Basically anything that makes us spontaneously say, "Good job!!!" counts, whether that's taking a good nap at preschool or cleaning up her room without having to be asked. Each jar works the same way: Get 3 "strikes" and you draw a consequence; get 3 "good jobs" and you draw a reward. Each jar includes three clips so that we can keep up with how many she has. The basket in the middle is the "Good Job Treat Basket", there's several slips of paper in the "Good job" jar that allow for a choice from the basket, which is filled with all sorts of goodies. I leave it out to serve as a reminder to think before we act. Other rewards in the jar are getting to go out for ice cream or a treat, or getting to rent a movie from Redbox. Some of the consequences we included are losing TV/iPad time, losing a toy for a few days, or losing a skirt (she LOVES wearing skirts to school, so this is a good motivator). There's also a few "grace" slips in the "Strike!" jar, that was the part of the whole idea that originally appealed to me. These are the things that work for our family and they may not work for everyone, but reading a few examples helped me form my own. Since our daughter is only 4, I keep the rewards and consequences pretty immediate, otherwise, it loses it's effectiveness. As she gets older, I'll introduce letting her earn money to buy treats and other things like that in order to encourage patience and perseverance.
Do you have a discipline system in place? How does it work for you? Has it changed as your kids have gotten older?
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