April 5, 2011

Discipline

So we started a new discipline system yesterday. Throughout the day whenever Brooklynn does something naughty (we're talking REALLY naughty like hitting, head butting, kicking, throwing things at Gabby, etc...) she gets a sad or what Brooklynn calls "mean" face. And then I try and catch her being good and give her a happy face or "nice" face. After day one I could tell she was REALLY trying to be nice by the end of the day, she actually got two more sad faces and only had 2 less smiley faces than sad faces so she ALMOST caught up. She was being pretty bad that first day. I am really really trying to give her some grace and also help her not to get the sad faces, I really don't like keeping them on there all day. (She is also getting a time out when she gets a sad face.) And the smiley faces some of the time were things that were obviously nice, but I'm really having to stretch to find nice things. (yes, she's being that bad the last couple days.) For instance, I gave her a smiley face today just for sitting on my lap so nicely while she watched her videos. So far that is her only smiley face today. I needed something visual for me since I am SUCH a visual person...and frankly, it helps me strive to help focus on the positive more. I look at the little smiley faces as little tiny "rewards" throughout the day when I "catch" her being good.
 Anyway, each day that she has more smiley faces than sad faces she gets a "special princess card" (which is only a piece of card stock with a Cinderella stamp on it.) But when she earns 10 of these she gets a special prize. I'm curious to know how long this will take her to achieve. Hopefully not too much longer than 10 days.
It was really fun to wash her hands super well at the end of the day (especially the sad faces) and tell her she gets to start over tomorrow. 

I'm still trying to decide if 10 princess cards is too many. Or if I should have something a little more exciting. I randomly made her a princess card on Sunday and she carried it around the rest of the day, it was so sweet. (She was SUPER good on Sunday, I think she might have had only 1 sad face and a whole bunch of happy faces if we had been keeping track then.)

So anyway, we'll see how this works. Anyone out there have other things that are working for them? 

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