I really try to live without punishments/rewards with the kids. Most of the time, we are successful. This was until the screaming started. Well, truly it has been going on for awhile, but it has reached an impossible crescendo. I feel as if I am continually in a foxhole with the noise level in our home. With some prompting from EC, I decided yesterday to charge 25 cents for every time we yelled at one another or screamed for sport. It worked. We all were more careful about our tone, using our words and being more respectful. E even started self-reporting on his screaming. All was good until I realized E thought he would get more quarters not lose them. He told me at bedtime that he would get 40 million quarters. Hmmm...perhaps we have to rethink this.
E: $2.00
A: $1.75
H: $ .25
I did find it quite interesting to see what each person considered yelling/screaming.
I'd be declaring bankruptcy at my hose for myself recently...
ReplyDeleteIt's tricky right? While I truly believe that there is always a better way than punishing/rewarding, the details of that are hard to accomplish sometimes.
ReplyDeleteYour story reminded me of a time last week when Indi said, "I'm going to hit you!" for the thousandth time that week. He was saying it because it pushed my buttons and I knew that I could diffuse the button and it would stop, but for some reason I just kept getting pissed off about it. It was first thing in the morning and he had way more energy than me and he said it and without even thinking I said, "I will give you a dollar if you stop saying that!"
He says, "Ok!" Crap. Now I have to give him a dollar. Thing is, I don't have any cash on me and it's seven o'clock in the morning. He totally freaks out that I don't have a dollar. I mean total freakout. We got through it though, and he ended up making his own money with construction paper. We learned a lot about money, and about surviving freakouts, that day, so in the end it was a cool experience.
I diffused the button after that. And it stopped.
PS - It's cool to finally see your blog! Hope to see you guys soon!