Ho hum

Being a parent is extra tough work sometimes. The last couple of days G1 has really been testing his limits (tho this seems to be a stage he's going thru, at least I hope it's a phase). He tries to get out of doing things simply because he doesn't want to do them. He tries to do jolly well what he pleases and gets really upset when I call him on it and make him behave or when I put him in the corner or make him sit in a chair. He's quite unmanageable at times, and then as sweet as syrup other times. Told me today that I'm a good mommy and he loves me and he loves to give me hugs and loves me to hug him, yada yada. I've decided that I'm going to try a reward system to see if that does anything for him. We sat down tonight and made a list of things he'd like to do/eat/get... and a list of ways to earn points to be able to do those things, and another list of things that will take points away. Now I need to come up with a visual reference for him so he can comprehend how many points he has and what his negative behaviour is doing to his points. Oh, I hope it works, but I'm not holding my breath. I am praying tho. My mom got me a book called Good Behavior which I'll read and hopefully glean some helpful things from. It was recommended to her by a mom of 2 boys. We'll see.

Update 2/6/08: I finally remembered that I had purchased on clearance some really bright, plastic coins from Oriental Trading Company awhile back. I got a see-thru plastic container for both kids, one with a pink lid, the other blue. Whenever they do things on their chore chart or do something especially nice (I catch them being good), I let them put 1 or 2 (depending on the thing they did, sometimes even 3) coins into their cup. When they get enough (1-2 gets them time on the computer, 2 for the park, 2 for watching the Sound of Music DVD...), they can do fun things. I'm not sure G2 understands the concept of spending them just yet, she just likes to get them. She's even potty trained almost completely because of the coins. She keeps her pants dry at night to get 2, get's 1 every time she pees, 2 when she does the other... She's also liking the idea of wearing "big girl pants" and only has a rare (no more than 1 a day) accident. So things are looking up there. Oh yeah, when either of them does something really bad, they get coins taken away from their bank cups. I think it's working nicely, tho G1s cup is not very full, it keeps getting coins taken away, and he does understand the concept of spending them better than G2 so he spend more of his.