Hey parents! Glad you found my website, and I hope you will learn some things to help you parent kids that are growing up before your eyes, yet are still just babies. It’s a fun transition as they gain independence, but may present some new challenges as they try new things, make friends and stay-at-home mom’s may begin to start going back to work.
Tips
Kids love attention and positive praise. Take advantage of that desire to please and curb their behavior with a simple chart. The visual rewards and progress make charts motivating for kids. Usually simple stickers work well, but the younger the kid the more simplistic it can be! Draw your own stars in marker, a happy face or whatever. They don’t care. As the child gets older let them draw a little whatever.
The best thing to do is use it to reward positive behavior, but if you want to curb a negative behavior, then twist the wording to get your end result. Example: you want your child to stop whining. Stickers are earned for big kid talking. “Good job, you used your big kid voice, you get a sticker!”
For littles just earning stickers might be enough, but often they want a reason and goal to earn them. Keep it simple and attainable. Maybe it’s earn 3 stickers in one day or 3 total and you get to stay up 15 minutes later. Whatever it is make sure the “prizes” come often when you first start and then increase how many needed to earn a prize because the prize gets bigger.
Work on only 1 behavior at at time. Often you’ll find if you really stick with it the behavior is so decreased after a few weeks you can stop the chart and start a new behavior chart.
VITAL: You must be consistent with it and you must absolutely follow through with the prizes. If you offer a trip for ice cream, you better make it happen within 24 hours. Kids really need immediate gratification so don’t promise things that you don’t really want to give or do. If you don’t follow through, they will quickly learn there isn’t any point in them earning stickers, therefore, keep those rewards simple. A few ideas are: later bedtime, donuts with dad, 15min extra screen time, board game after dinner with parents, special treat during a family movie, special dessert, helping cook or bake time, fly a new kite in the park, visit a new park, pick a book at the library, etc.
Books
- Parenting with Love and Logic, Foster Cline & Jim Fay
- The Strong Willed Child, Dr. James Dobson
- Making Children Mind without Losing Yours, Dr. Kevin Leman
- Creative Correction, Lisa Whelchel
- Family First, Dr. Phil McGraw
- Bringing up Boys, Dr. James Dobson
- 5 Love Languages of Children, Gary Chapman & Ross Campbell
- Raising Mentally Strong Kids, Daniel Amen & Dr. Charles Fay
Websites
- https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/
- https://www.focusonthefamily.com/