This is the way I choose to remember Evan. Sweet, gentle, mild-mannered, angelic.
Ha! Boy, has a lot changed in the last couple of weeks! Don't worry. He's still all of these things with Maren. It's just his parents who he seems to feel differently about now. :-) It happened two or three weeks ago. We kissed our angel good night and he woke up a different boy. Now he's aggressive, defiant, hitting, spitting, throwing things, having tantrums, screaming, saying mean things. All those blessed things I thought I was going to get to skip over. He's almost three! I thought we were going to get to skip those "terrible twos". Guess not. Oh! My favorite thing to hear today was, "Don't say anything, Mom. Your voice is boring." Ha! Where do kids get these things from?!?!
So, Michael and I have been beside ourselves with what to do about this new turn of events. Yesterday was a TERRIBLE day. It was so negative. We were taking away privileges left and right and he spent half the day in time-out. Michael and I were drained and felt terrible about all the negativity. And Evan...well, he didn't even care. It just wasn't the right motivation for him. So, Michael and I did some brainstorming and we spent our entire date night working on our new system for motivating Evan to have better behavior. First we went to The Learning Palace and got a job chart. When he completes jobs around the house (some things as simple as saying something nice to his sister, etc.), he gets tokens. When he gets 20 tokens, he can choose something from our "fun store". That's a bucket we got at the dollar store full of cheap but entertaining toys. We also threw in lots of healthy snacks and things I never by like fruit snacks. This bucket is PACKED full of motivational goodness. Evan was really excited about it (though he's having a hard time with this delayed gratification stuff) and got 14 tokens today. I guess we'll probably have to pay up with something from the "store" tomorrow. This will be an interesting experiment. Today was a much better day. If things continue this way, I'll be thrilled. If they go back to how they were on Friday, I'm checking myself into the psyche ward!
4 comments:
Oh Memory! Get ready! Three is LOTS worse than two...at least it has been for us. You're so good to try to get a handle on it now! Good luck!
And focusing on POSITIVE behavior is EXACTLY what you should be doing. Way to go! I'd cut the tokens down to 10 for a prize however. The younger the kid, the fewer they should have to earn. Then over time gradually increase how many he needs. Then over time you can just phase it all completely out.
Jen of Jen and Dad
I love to hear stories of other cute little boys being naughty!! Evan really is a sweet boy (at my house anyways, right?!!) Good luck with the prizes...can I have a prize if I promise to be a good mom this week?
Keep us posted on how the chart is working!
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