The teacher in me…

The teacher in me is always looking for incentives…positive reinforcement.  Trigger is a pretty difficult child.  If I had in my classroom, he would probably be a child that I would LOVE (of course) but would be a little glad when they were absent. I know that may sound horrible but he is really difficult.  The wonderful thing is that he doesn’t act this way at school.  PRAISE THE LORD!  He saves his wonderful behavior for me (and his daddy).  I have taught some children that act this way at school and it is really difficult to teach them.  Let me just give an example….if you say in a very excited and happy voice, “Trigger, lets clean up these toys…lets make it a game and see how fast we can do it…you think we can do it before daddy gets home…ohhhh, I bet he would be so proud of us if we cleaned it all up.”  He would respond “I don’t want it clean.”  Me “well, if we hurry we might have time to play outside before supper”.  Trigger: “I don’t want to play outside” (knowing full well that he is just itching to go outside).  Me: “okay…well lets just play with these toys and we will clean up later…but if we choose to do that, we won’t be able to go outside…is that what you want?”  Trigger: “yes maam”…two seconds later the yelling and screaming and major meltdown of crying would begin…..do you know why?  because he wants to go outside.  THIS is ALL DAY LONG! 

My point?!?!  My point is that I have to find creative ways to get him to do things.  We’ve tried it all…and no, the do it or you’ll get a spanking does NOT work.  He doesn’t really care…or he may care but just doesn’t show it.  Either way, I would tire myself by spanking and the toys still wouldn’t be picked up.  BTW, my children do get spankings.  Anyway, I bought these clear jars.  I have little pebbles (we call them marbles) in a bag.  ANY time I see him doing something sweet, cleaning up, doing something the first time asked, staying in his bed, etc., he gets a marble..or sometimes a lot of marbles.  Like for actually going to sleep during naptime, I sometimes give him TEN marbles….because napping is VERY important in our house!  :)  The great things is that he has to count them out with me watching him…so its great for his one-to-one correspondence too!!! 

What is the reward?  A new TOY!  because we have NO toys in our house…HAHAHA!!  Seriously though…when he filled his jar up, he immediately asked to go to TARGET to pick a toy.  Obviously he has learned a young age that Target is WAY better the HORRIBLE walmart.  We took him and he picked out a Thomas train.  He was SOOOO excited to be able to pick something!  Maybe this will continue to be a good incentive.  Because after this, I’m out of ideas…okay…not really but I do feel like my bag of tricks is getting a little low!