I am a firm believer in natural consequences as the perfect teacher. When the kids were young, this was a simple thing. Refusing to eat breakfast simply meant they were hungry at lunch and thought twice about skipping a meal the next day. As they got older, it got a little more complicated.
That was when we started Stones. It was like a combination of the point system from Harry Potter and countless other techniques that we morphed into what fit us. I loved Stones. It was visual, the kids could see their jars filling (or not filling). It was a positive and negative tool. I could reward or take stones. The stones made noise. The kids could hear me adding or taking stones away. This stopped all parental yelling! I watched Brent backtalk to JT while JT calmly removed one stone from the jar after another. Brent became frustrated, but stopped when he realized JT would keep going. It also forced us to search for the good in our kids. Who could deal with an empty jar. But now they are getting even older. The desire to decorate jars and watch them fill, then turn them in for stuff has waned. We have found ourselves less able to impact our children's behavior, unable to give out consequences that our children care about. That is what it is really about; finding what they want or care about and using it as a currency that rewards them for positive behavior and discourages negative behavior. At least it is for us.
It hit me the other day that my parenting tools were becoming ineffective when Callie was horrified that a previous teacher would see her work. Admitting that it was below standard. Something I had been telling her for awhile. Yet, other than threatening to allow a teacher to look at her work, how could I motivate her to do her best. Both kids got into the habit of doing what was required and I got into the habit of being frustrated but accepting it. Something had to be done.
JT and I sat down last night to discuss why Stones was no longer working and how we could adapt the principle of a simple system to our changing children. First we need to know what our kids wanted and cared about. Sadly, as is the way in most families, it came to video game/tv time. Oh well, deal with what works.
We are dumping stones and just using time. Friday is when assignments are due. I keep track of the weeks highs and lows. JT sees the kids at times I do not and sees other behavior. We plan on sitting down each weekend and discussing their week. We have come up with an average amount of TV time we want them to have and what they could earn for an exceptional week. We will let them know Sunday what they have earned for the upcoming week and why. The hope is that they will see it is their overall behavior that matters. It is OK that they have rough spots, but they need to keep trying and will be rewarded. I have hopes that someday the currency isn't video games.
We have set a daily limit during the school week for time that they can use. They need to plan ahead, since no additional time will be rewarded. This is our first week. We are giving them this week what we consider average. I'm sure we will be tweaking it over the next couple weeks, but hopefully some of the frustration will be alleviated.
i like the rocks that is cool.. but yeah so would out grow them... still like the idea of showing there work to others..