Some of you may have heard me characterize our kids as “high-maintenance”. I say this because as they get older we have noticed that they are very particular and get very upset when things aren’t exactly the way they want. In fact, Bernard and I joke that they theme song for our parenting experience is The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, which we sing to them often–to their annoyance. The grandparents claim that the problem is giving them too many things and choices, but when I thought about the things that upset them, it doesn’t really have to do with material items or choices. Here’s a sample list of meltdown-producing events:
- The five-pointed star I drew for Eleanor was not perfectly symmetric.
- When I put the lid on Miranda’s cup, the hole for the straw was not perfectly lined up with the lion on the cup.
- I went out of turn when playing baseball with them.
- We forgot to let Eleanor set the table for dinner.
- I used all capital letters when writing their names, instead of capitalizing only the first letter.
- When I put toothpaste on the toothbrush, part of the toothpaste was slipping off the side.
- When I cut out Miranda’s flower drawing, I didn’t cut on the line.
This list could go on ad infinitum. And these events produce full-blown whining and crying. They’re also hard to predict, and therefore, hard to avoid. I became depressed, thinking, “Why are my kids so unhappy with me all the time?” Then, I changed my thinking to “Fine, they can be upset, but crying about this kind of stuff is inappropriate and rude.” So we started giving time-outs for this behavior. Soon, we were giving five time-outs a day, and feeling even more frustrated because it wasn’t working. Basically, they would start whining and crying about something, then we would warn them that if they didn’t stop they would get a time-out, and this would just turn the whining and crying into full-blown fury–kicking, screaming, throwing things and spitting. This would prolong the time-out, i.e. turn a three minute time-out into thirty minutes because they wouldn’t calm down. I was really close to using corporal punishment, and even talked to my mom about how to implement it. (This would have been called the “I’ll give you something to cry about” method.)
This week, I decided to try a different approach. On Sunday, we went to the grocery store and the kids said they wanted a balloon. They’ve actually never seriously asked for any material object before, and I said no, since I didn’t want them to think that they could get something every time we went to the store. But this led me to think, “How can they earn a balloon?” So, I created a reward chart on a magnetic white board. The kids wrote their names and the days of the week. I drew a picture of a crying face and told them that if they didn’t whine or cry, they could get a magnet, and if they collected enough magnets, they could get a balloon at the end of the week.
The kids understood the concept right away and the behavior change has been dramatic. Now, if they start to whine, I just say in a matter-of-fact voice, “So I guess you don’t want a magnet”, and they stop! I specifically haven’t said how many magnets they need to get a balloon since I wasn’t sure how this was going to work. On Tuesday, Eleanor couldn’t stop crying about how Miranda got two turns for hitting the baseball in a row, so she didn’t get a magnet. (She didn’t accept my reasoning that she had had three turns in a row before Miranda decided that she wanted to hit the baseball too.) After she stopped crying, she looked sadly at the chart and the empty space under Tuesday in her row.
She then drew an “X” through the crying face, and next to it, a happy face (with hair), and I told her she could try to get a magnet the next day. So far, Eleanor has three magnets this week, and Miranda has four. I think I will let them have a balloon for four magnets a week since I think Eleanor can earn one today.
Initially, I wasn’t sure this was going to work, since behavioral psychologists usually recommend using reward charts for positive behaviors like picking up shoes, setting the table, brushing your teeth, not avoidance of negative behaviors like crying or whining. Then, I thought about what I say to parents about kids who bedwet. They get a star in the morning for not wetting the bed at night. Anyway, so far, this has made life much more pleasant so we’ll continue it for now.