Too smart for punishment...

Here's something that is interesting about our son. He doesn't respond well to 'losing' or punishment as well as he does to the 'star system'. I used to think of these as bribes, but now that we use it with our son, we're learning it really is early work experience for him.

Here's what we do.
I have a set of colorful nameplates I bought at the Teacher & Parents store (TAPS). I also bought the perennial favorite of teachers, a packet of gold stars. Above the name line I write the numbers 1-10 spaced out to fit a star. A full 'board' earns my son a trip to the store to spend $40 for anything he wants.

He has 'cashed in' one board so far and is only one star short of a second board. We have been doing this for about 3 months and the funny thing is he listens better and does what we want him to do - sometimes without even telling him!

How he has 'earned' stars:
* Help mommy with the baby - not for a minute but for a period of time past his short attention span.
* A big clean up. Not the daily 'nice-neat-and organized' routine but the one where we decide which toys go back upstairs and which stay downstairs.
* Waking up and getting ready for school or bed without being told. That means changing his clothes and brushing his teeth and cleaning up in the evening.
* Having a good attitude consistently for 3 days or more (no complaints).
* Helping mommy with the garden - if you've seen the pictures you'll understand why!

He has also earned one time stars. In other words he received the star for the first time he did something we wanted him to, but not after that - it was expected.

I remember now why I came up with this. I went to his preschool parent teacher conference . His report was great - nothing he needed to improve. So I asked for ideas about what we could improve in how we handle him so he would listen better to us. His teacher gave me examples of how she handles the children and I noticed, every example highlighted positive behaviors. Until then we had gotten into the habit of being short with him. That approach let's off steam but doesn't fix the underlying problem. I went home and started feeding the baby reading one of my parent or womens magazines, when something in an article mentioned giving a sticker as a reward. I knew then what I would do. The next day we went to TAPS. I spent a good twenty minutes looking for a letter sized board to display his stickers -- then I found the pack of 100 nameplates (3" x 11") and gold stars next to them. Voila! This would be our reward system.

I should have figured this out before! About a year ago I finally discovered the secret to getting him potty trained. In that case it was a bribe. We had been telling him he would get a game when he went started to use the potty. We didn't realize that he didn't understand that concept - it was too abstract. So one weekend I went ahead and bought a gameboy game and put it up on the laundry room shelf. Then sometime that week, he was sitting on the potty, refusing to go. In my frustration I grabbed the game and said "See this is what you'll get if you just go in the potty and stop wearing diapers!!" BINGO! His eyes lit up and his whole attitude changed. The next day he was potty trained!

Our son is very bright. As we have learned punishments don't work with him; instead rewards and empathy do. We use empathy - put him in the other person's shoes - when he has hurt someone or could have. He has to understand why his behavior is incorrect. Once he understands, he chooses not to engage in that behavior.

Our friends and coworkers remark how lucky our son is to grow up with 'two smart parents'. But I know there are far smarter parents than us in other areas. The problem for us is that we don't understand what our children don't comprehend. My handicap when I help people with computer issues is that things that are intuitive to me are not even in the realm of reality for the casual computer user. I am learning the same thing is true about children. We forget that at one time we simply didn't know there was 'such a thing as ' [fill in the blank].
.:end:.

TAGS: parenting | punishment | rewards

Maybe Tipper was on to something

I had an interesting discussion with my dentist today about the iPod I was listening to. It seems his daughter now wants one and is begging her dad for one. Unfortunately, after talking to me he has made up his mind not to get her one, and I understand why. Here's the feedback I submitted to Apple regarding iPod.

I just finished showing my dentist the iPod I had since his daughter wants one. Unfortunately he has now decided against getting her one for a simple reason, he can't control what she will load onto it and has no way of monitoring it. It's not just the explicit songs he's worried about as much as he is about what he considers inappropriate themes and attitudes prevalent in the music his nieces and nephews listen to. As the mother of a bright and cheerful 5 year old son, who has just discovered music CDs, I can understand his concern. I also try to keep certain music and television shows out of his 'reach' because I believe those attitudes and themes to be an obstacle to success and happiness. It would be nice as a parent to setup an iTunes account and iPod for my children that would be prevented from buying, ripping or uploading not just explicit material but also thematic material that I don't want them to have on their iPods. A rating system similar to that found on TV - with DLSV and additional categories - for criminal activity, sexist attitudes, loser attitudes, blaming attitudes, and the like would be helpful. I know that even with ratings enforcement on iPod/iTunes this won't prevent them from being exposed to the songs and programs that I oppose from other sources. However, at least I will be assured none of that ends up on the iPods I buy for them.

I recently played with setting ratings on the TV we bought to replace another one that my son uses. I liked the fact that I could refine the blocks on TV-xy to separate Dialogue, Sexual, Language, and Violence but even those I found too broad for my mission.

Our mission: Well we've brainwashed our son into being a very happy kid who has manners, is kind-hearted and cuddly.

How? Simple.

• As a baby, we constantly smiled at him and we played with him. We also spoiled him by letting him sleep in our bed (he still won't leave after 5 years) hugging him and telling him often that we love him.
• As a toddler, we let him watch TV, but only the shows with happy smiling characters like Elmo, Barney, Roly Poly Oly and Baby Einstein.
• He plays happy video games, he has since he was 18 months old. I know many who will disapprove, but far from being a sullen and solitary child with a limited attention span and vocabulary, he is quite the opposite.
• We have also always quickly switched the channel or station when a show or song came on that had the following themes: sexist, loser attitudes, blame everyone, manipulative, lying, cheating, stealing and of course drugs.

Whether or not our son will continue to be the happy and huggable child he is now once he enters kindergarten is unknown. But he is in preschool (started this past September) and seems to have kept these qualities all the while he was dealing with children who weren't as happy or as nice as he is (he had bite marks to prove it!). Sure he has his bad days, for which he is punished or redirected. But he is still a happy kid - holding his own in preschool. I know, preschoolers are not known for being bad influences. However, he has a tendency to prefer nice kids versus those with attitudes. So maybe our decisions to keep him from the 'bad' attitudes of songs and shows has shaped his view of the world such that he finds that material alien and not reminiscent of home.

I know I am dragging on, but our son continues to draw pictures of his "family at home" all smiling. Pictures say a thousand words. His drawings tell us we are doing the right thing.


.:end:.