Bucking Bad Behavior

I'm screaming, military style, "get back in bed, its the fifth time you have been out of bed, I'm sitting on the dam couch there is nothing to be scared of.  I'll give you something to be scared of if you don't stay in bed, me."  As Fathers, we want to be respected and in a little way we want to be feared.  Its the classic alpha male, this is our house and you will do what I say.  But respect is hard to come by, kids will be kids, and it often leads us down the path to spanking and yelling (Adrian Peterson was clearly trying to establish his dominance).  I got tired of the yelling, the threats of spankings, my kids weren't deterred. I had to change it up.  We as parents have to change it up, every kids responds differently.  We have to figure out what motivates our children, and for my children if I wanted to see better behavior, to see chores getting done, to see kids in bed.  I had to shell out the big bucks, the behavior bucks.


 
Behavior Bucks, simple and effective.  When your child performs a task or an action that you like, award them with a behavior buck. After so many behavior bucks they can get a toy from a prize bin.  Make this process easy in the beginning, they need to get behavior bucks often enough to be able to purchase a reward quickly.  Once they save up enough to get a toy, they will be hooked. 

Can you guess the other benefits?  My kids have different items in the prize bin?  They price ranges from $10, $15 to $25.  They have to learn to save, they have to learn to spend bucks on things the really want, a bad purchase leads to wasted effort.  But wait there's more. My kids love counting the bucks.  They will lay out all the bucks and figure out how much more they need to earn a prize.  They don't even realize they are doing a math lesson :). 

I haven't even touched on the real power yet.  The power of subtraction.  When my children are getting out of hand, they lose a hard-earned behavior buck.  They become one dollar farther way from that great prize they have had theirs eyes set on, and they are learning all about subtraction.  For my daughter the loss of a behavior buck is a huge deal, it will often change her bad behavior immediately.

But my son is different, remember I talked about motivation.  Bed time was the worst time in the day for me, My kids would get up time after time "I need water, food, brush my teeth, I'm scared etc... My son he loves tv shows, so we had to modify the behavior buck system for him.  My kids get two tickets when they go to bed.  Every time they get out of bed they lose a ticket.  They need one ticket to watch a show in the morning, no tickets, no show.  My son gladly gets out of bed one time every night.  Ticket in hand, and then quiet.  Until he found a couple sneaky tricks.  #1 he would go into his room after paying ticket one but would not go into bed, therefore could not lose ticket since he never went back to bed.  #2  he screams from his bed because he knows he can't get out.  Or my daughter who just drags out getting into bed.  So we get creative, my daughter will lose a ticket if she doesn't get into bed in a timely fashion, my son if he continues to scream for things from his room.  Have trouble getting your kids ready in the morning, well my kids need one ticket and they need to be dressed and ready for the day plus morning chores have to be done. 
  

Sometimes its not about being the big rough and tough parent, who will demand respect through loud noises and yelling.  Sometimes its about getting creative, figuring out what motivates your child.  Insanity is doing the same things over and over, if its not working hit the internet and look for different techniques.   

Adrian Peterson - A New Rule of Thumb

 The rule of Thumb is explained in the introduction to the Boondock Saints seen below (minute 1:35) "In the early 1900's it was legal for a man to beat his wife as long as he used a stick no wider than his thumb."  Of course in the case with Adrian Peterson the beating was given to a four year old child and not his wife (note: Adrian admitted to the beating so it is not alleged but fact). 

It's not everyday that an alleged child abuse case gets public attention, of course its not everyday when a star football player gets arrested for alleged child abuse, although he admitted to using a switch on his son so its a case of discipline vs abuse.  To understand what happened, here is a qoute taken off ESPN1420.com in an article written by By Scott Prather "The beating allegedly resulted in numerous injuries to the child, including cuts and bruises to the child’s back, buttocks, ankles, legs and scrotum, along with defensive wounds to the child’s hands.”

To learn more and see pictures go to  http://www.tmz.com/2014/09/12/adrian-peterson-indicted-for-child-abuse/

With a 3 year old and a 6 year old of my own it drove me nuts to hear people come to Adrian's defense.  Let's hear the common excuses in favor of Adrian Peterson.

1.)  I am blogging under Midwestern Father and not Down South Father, so some would claim I don't understand the use of a switch to discipline.  It's true but where I'm from spankings and belts are used, I think we all understand physical discipline.

 2.) Children these days need more discipline.  Agreed, but this was not discipline, I hope the courts concur.

3.) Adrian's excuse, that's how he was disciplined when he was a child.  Right, so feel free to do every horrible thing that was done to you when you were a child to your own child.   

I agree with everything above if you follow my new rule of thumb.  Here is the scenario: Your child is playing at a friends house, in which your child and his friends get into some trouble (Speaking from experience, I was chased with a spatula by a friends mom, in all good fun of course, at least I don't think she was serious?).  If your child comes home from the neighbors with the following "numerous cuts and bruises to you child’s back, buttocks, ankles, legs and scrotum, along with defensive wounds to the child’s hands.”  What would you do? Would the excuses above be good enough for you not drag your neighbor out of his house and beat the living snot out of him. Please.  How can you claim discipline if it would put your neighbor in jail?  And don't tell me it's your child so it's okay, that's so 1900's.

Listen we can all agree there are better alternatives to disciplining your child.  I will touch on some of them in my next blog, "Bucking Bad Behavior".   But please if you want to use a belt or a switch follow my new rule of thumb, don't hit your child any harder then you would want someone else to hit your child.  If you feel its not hard enough to be affective, figure out some other method. 

The Food Fight TKO - And Your Childern Are the Champs

You take a deep breath, a chance to relax with your family at the dinner table, and seconds later it happens.  The calls to be excused begin to echo across the room, hardly a bite has been taken, not even a "how has your day" been asked.  You become offended, you have been preparing your elaborate meal for hours, or maybe its the fact that you spent hard earned money on that meal, or they that you took a few minutes out of your extremely busy life to get food on the table.  Whatever your reason the fight begins, finish your plate if you want some junk food before bed, take as many bites as you are old or whatever technique you use to get your child to eat.  Its time to end the fight and this time your child is right.

I know, I know if you child doesn't eat he will soon be on a TV commercial with Ethiopian kids, your neighbors will be dropping off $0.20 a week so you can purchase some grains to feed him.  And I know, how will your child get the nutrients he needs to be that professional athlete, he's one plate away from sacking Manning on Sunday night.  I'm here to tell you, in my best Frozen singing voice, let them go, let them go.  I know you have spent hours preparing that meal and spent hard earned money that will go to waste.  But look back to your childhood.  If it was anything like mine you were constantly told to finish your plate, and on top of that bags of doritos, mountain dew and licorice always laid close by.  I learned at a very young age to eat even if I wasn't hungry, and often awarded with more food I didn't need, but who can resist dessert?  Those horrible food companies feed you full of man made chemicals that are so addictive, they could steal customers away from Heisenberg (Breaking Bad reference, he cooks the best crystal meth if your still unsure, its blue if you want to impress your husbands).   But its at that time you create eating habits that will affect you for the rest of your life.  These habits don't seem so bad at first but years later you're sitting behind a desk wondering how to lose all this weight. Habits that have created one of the most obese, sick countries in the world. 

Your kids haven't formed these habits yet. Take a seat on the canvas and don't start teaching it to them.  Trust nature, your kids know when they need to eat and how much.  I see it with my son, he has way better eating habits than I do.  He hasn't had years to create horrible habits.  He eats 5 small meals a day, which include supper where he hardly eats anything at all.  By forcing him to eat more than he wants we begin to create a very bad habit.  Its going to be hard watching that food/money go to waste but it's time to learn something from your kids (besides patience of course).  Instead of making elaborate meals, make smaller meals.  Instead of buying everyone meals, split meals.  Don't fight over how much to eat, focus your fight on what your child eats.  Healthier, better-tasting options are popping up all the time.

So at your next meal, take a deep breath, sitting at the dinner table should no longer be a battle.  Trust nature, let your children eat when they are hungry, let them eat as much as they want, and focus your battle on what they eat, not how much.