Helpful Mom

A friend of mine commented on my last post about how often we find ourselves as moms constantly focusing on the bad behavior and not rewarding their good behavior.  I too can find myself in this trap and have had to retrain myself to encourage and recognize their good behavior.  I have noticed with my older daughter in particular that she responds much better to praise than if you yell at her for being bad.  Kids crave and thrive on your encouragement.  Obviously all kids are very different and respond differently to different consequences but they all need our love and encouragement.  But it can feel very unnatural to be telling them what a good job it was that they finished their sandwich or remembered to flush the toilet when it’s something they are supposed to do anyways.  But making the effort is worth it in the end because they are more likely to do it again in the future because it makes mom happy.  Apparently I said it so often to my girls that they started telling me that I was doing a good job (and giving me thumbs up) when I’d put dinner on the table.  That makes it worth it doesn’t it!

So after reading Creative Correction I began using one of the hundreds of ideas for teaching your children to obey and behave.  It’s a very simple yet effective idea.  Each time the girls say please, thank you, or share unprompted we put a penny in a jar with their name on it.  When they get 100 pennies I take them to the dollar store and they can pick one toy.  So far it has worked really well and they remember to say please and thank you most of the time.  Katrina’s favorite is to ask for something please, I get a penny, thank you, I get two pennies. All in that sing songy voice of little kids.  But it has really helped with them remembering to be polite and has also had an interesting side effect.  They end up catching each other being good too!  Katrina will sing out, Mikayla gets a penny.  It’s simple, it’s easy, and highly effective.  It’s so much easier to encourage good behavior from the beginning then to try and retrain them after the fact.  We just need to remember to do it.

Another trick I have to remind myself to do is when Mikayla is whining, whining, whining.  Driving me crazy while I’m trying to do something, always when I’m trying to do something isn’t it ;P  I have to stop myself and just take her to the couch and sit for a few minutes just cuddling her.  And that’s it.  Usually all she wanted was a little attention, then she’ll go off and play and I can go back to what I was doing.  I have to remind myself that nothing I’m trying to get done is as important as my little girls, because they will only be little for a short time.  My husband won’t mind if dinner is a bit late if he comes home and things are in control.  But if dinners on time but I’ve spent the last half hour yelling at them to leave me alone what good is it?