Shiny Stones

Frequently people ask me what the discipline system looks like in my home.  I have two elementary school age daughters, and to be honest the system has changed over the years.  The girls' needs have changed, and I have learned more too.  Parenting is hard work!  Things are always changing! 

The current system I am using came after I realized I needed to practice what I preach.  At school, I am frequently talking about the importance of positive behavior reinforcement.  I was doing some positive reinforcement at home with verbal praise and of course hugs, but I realized I needed to do more.  I was finding myself prompting, reminding, nagging and then getting angry way too often, so several months ago I decided it was time to shake it up.

I pulled out a jar of fancy, shiny stones and a cup with each girls' names on it.  I explained to my daughters that they could earn stones for good behavior.  Each stone would be cashed in later for electronics time.  At first, I was giving stones left and right and each stone was worth two minutes of electronics time.  I made sure to give out a lot of stones at first because I wanted the girls to buy into the system, and I wanted them to see what good behavior looked like.  It worked great!  I was passing out stones for good manners, getting ready quickly for school, etc.  They were totally motivated and were working hard to show good behavior in order to earn a stone.  Plus an added bonus -  when the girls cashed in their stones, they were calculating how much electronic time they earned. (secret math lesson!)  Another perk - I didn't have to be the electronics police anymore.  We went from me telling them when they needed to put the electronics down, to the girls knowing how much time they had bought and taking care of it themselves.  They would set the timer and when the timer went off, they were done.

After a few weeks, I knew we were ready to pull back a bit.  I still passed out stones but not as frequently.  As a result, I also made the stones worth more.  Each stone was now worth five minutes of electronics time.  It still worked!  

Several months later it is still working.  There are of course moments when I nag and get angry, but not nearly as much as before.  There's a more positive vibe in the house, and that is awesome.  Also my girls are using way less electronic time.  They are saving their stones to cash in for longer chunks of time (usually about 20-30 minutes), so electronics are used much more sparingly.

Will this method work forever?  I wish!  Realistically though, I know it probably won't.  My kids' needs will change and the system will probably need to change too, but for now, positive behavior is being reinforced, my kids are motivated, and I'm not a grumpy mom (usually).  

My Bucket is Overflowing (& That's A Good Thing)

The 2013/2014 school year has come to a close, and I am happy to look back and say it was a good year.  Every year has some bumps in the road, but this one was pretty good overall.

One of the things we did differently this year was talking about filling buckets.  I began the year by visiting every classroom the first week of school and reading, How Full Is Your Bucket? for Kids by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. The book is about how everyone has an invisible bucket.  When our buckets are full, we feel great.  When our buckets are empty, we feel pretty awful.  We fill buckets through kind words and actions and empty buckets through negative actions.  This sparked great conversations with the students regarding how to fill one another's buckets, and I LOVED getting a chance to go into classrooms and talk to kids right off the bat.   

In the front hallway we created a display about bucket filling.  I told the students that the teachers and I would be looking and listening for bucket fillers.  When we saw bucket filling, students were given a water droplet to fill out describing their bucket filling action.  The water droplets were then added to our display in the hallway.  The kids and I talked about how awesome it would be to see a wall full of water droplets at the end of the year.  We discussed how a school full of bucket fillers would be a pretty amazing place to attend.

All year long, the teachers, aides and I watched and listened for bucket fillers and recognized them accordingly.  It was pretty cool.  As the year went on I saw more students doing little things like holding the door for one another, helping someone who dropped their books and helping one another in the cafeteria.  Those little things added up and made our school a better place.  In turn, if someone made a poor choice, I used the bucket analogy to help the student understand how his or her actions emptied someone else's bucket.

Looking back, I know there were times when I got a little lax and forgot to watch for and celebrate bucket filling, but in all I think it was a pretty good year.  I know my bucket was overflowing and that was because of all our awesome students and staff.