This is what is has come to in our household. Today we instituted a chore chart for Emma. Each day she will put an "X" after she has set the table WITHOUT being asked. On Tuesdays she also will put a "*" for taking out the recycling. If you can see today, she has already set the table (not bad for the first day!). If she has 6 Xs & 1 * by Thursday evening she has earned the right to have movie night (video & popcorn at home) on Friday night. Joe's Friday evenings will also be determined by Emma's actions. In a couple of days we will institute a potty chart for Joe (oh, joy). Rather than focusing on if he is dry (as we have been doing), he will put stickers on the chart for each time he tries the potty by himself. 5 stickers will equal 1 piece of candy. Forget about what I have said over the years about never using food as a bribe. That was before I had a 5 1/2 year old who still wasn't potty trained. There are some problems with this plan. First, Joe's OT skills aren't so great a stickers are very challenging. Second, I am not sure that he will connect 5 times to 1 candy. That seems a little too abstract but I am not willing to go 1 piece of candy each time. Any suggestions?
2 comments:
First I would like the clarify something, it is not necessarily a bribe. . . I like to think of it as a REWARD. You are rewarding positive behavior! I know you think differently but I don't think one piece of candy each time is excessive, unless it's a giant Hershey bar or something! In the grand scheme of things it is a short amount of time for him to eat candy. Otherwise it has to be something he really wants that's easy to dole out. stickers, pencils. Otherwise put it visually, put 5 stickers in a row then a picture of the candy he'd get. Then he can count (or learn to count?) each time. And Daniel was 6 when he was potty trained, so don't feel bad!
I know what you mean about the candy. With Evan I felt like I was trading a potty trained child for a child who might have 10 cavities at his first dental appointment. We did one M&M for each time he tried to use the bathroom on the potty in the beginning so he could see how the system worked. THen gradually increased what he had to do in order to earn the candy. The candy was kept in a clear container in the bathroom where he could see it and be reminded of the bribe. I was trained never to reward behavior with food or candy, but potty training has been an exception to this rule. By making the candy visible, I hoped that Evan would be self motivated to earn it (I didn't remind him over and over that if he went he would get the candy in order to lure him into the bathroom). I tried stickers, toy cars, etc first, but when I finally used candy as the reward, it worked much more effectively. Sigh. GOOD LUCK!!
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