Day 30 - The Consequences

Last week I laid out the three major actions the kids do that bug me the most, drive me to yell, really push my buttons, etc.

They were:

1.  Don't Listen when asked to do something/act a certain way/etc
2.  Hitting
3.  Talking Back / Telling me/DH no (Little Miss is an expert at that!)

I decided I would ask the kids what they thought the consequences should be for each of those actions. Together (wow!) they came up with the following:

1.  Lose privileges (screen time, toys, little trips, treat trips, etc)
2.  Time Out (minutes = their age)
3.  Soap & Time Out

To reinforce these consequences so we were all fully aware of them, we did three things:

1.  Verbally went over them a few times.
2.  Physically practiced.
3.  Wrote them down.

With the first one, it was just asking them what the consequence was for each one.  Pretty simple.

The second one was actually practice.  What?  Make them have bad behavior.  Of course!  I have found that practicing the behavior I want them to have and the behavior I don't want them to have (and thus the consequence) is GREAT.  So we practiced all three things and they practice the consequence for all three.

The final was to write it down.  The actions and consequences now reside on a large yellow piece of paper on our fridge.  This is mainly for my own reference.  When I have to look at the sheet in the heat of the moment, I calm down a lot faster and can hand out the consequence with all my wits about me.

After a week of this, the results have been really good!  I've been most impressed with the sharp digression in the talking back.

Each has only gotten soap in their mouth once. Now, some people have a moral disagreement with putting soap in their child's mouth.  I figure it's better than a spanking or flick to the mouth.  And my mom did it with all six of us kids and we turned out fine.  Actually...when soap wasn't doing the trick, she switched to tabasco sauce.  Unless it was a really bad word - then tabasco came without question.  To me, the consequence fits the action as well.  Dirty/sassy words need to be cleaned out.  How we do it is just a tiny squirt of soap in the mouth.  Then they rinse it out with water.  Trust me - they get more soap in their mouths during bath time than when they sass off.

The other easy thing has been the loss of privileges.  We talk a lot about how certain things are a privilege (i.e. playing games on the iPad, watching cartoons, getting special treats, helping DH with special jobs, stories, PJ walks etc).  This has been a really good consequence because it's easy to straighten up the behavior.  Just a simple "Not listening means losing privileges.  The privilege to lose is..." and we name the privilege that is coming up next.  If they don't respond to what we are saying, that privilege is gone.   What is really effective is when one listens and the other doesn't so only one loses the privilege.  This seems to hit home a bit harder and helps them remember for the next time.

So we will continue on this path.  Keep consistent with it.  That's the goal, right?

Cheers,
Megs