If your child/children are like my Elise, they have probably been complaining they are bored and want to see their friends and no matter how many arts and crafts activists, role play games, puzzles, trips to the park and over priced farms and soft plays, they are are still bored.
With bordness seems to come naughtiness. In the past 3 weeks my darling daughter has turned from a raging threenager too, well is there a word for four year olds?!?
It's like she went to bed one night and woke up with this new found attitude, defiance and complete lack of respect for authority or discipline. Time out no longer botherd her, star charts weren't working, taking away toys or banishing any sort of biscuit or treat from the house (not that she has slot) did nothing. So I had to get creative.
Say hello to the new addition in our house,"the pebble pot". A simple yet effective (so far) way for Elise to see her good behaviour being rewarded and her bad behaviour being punished. I have seen lots of different ways of doing this with, marbles, buttons or sweets and it seems to be a hit. Here is how we have done Elise's "pebble pot"
We collected 50 pebbles, we chose pebbles as we have lots in our garden but as mentioned above this can be used with just about anything. We got Elise to paint the pebbles so she was part of the process.We decided each pebble is worth 5p. She is only allowed to cash in her pebbles when the pot is full, which will give her £2.50.
Her dad and I sat down and decided on tasks that would earn her pebbles and behaviour that would cause her to loose them. We wrote it out with her and have put it on the fridge so she can see and understand exactly what she needs to do to earn her pebbles.
Here is a picture of the sheet (apologises for my husbands bad writing) an example of ways for her to earn pebbles is, getting ready in the morning, sharing her toys, listening. Behaviour to loose pebbles, shouting, not listening to mummy and daddy, running off when out (this is her new thing)
So far the pebble pot is a hit and she has earner herself 9 pebbles and only had one taken away. She was completely mortified when she lost that pebbles and soon adjusted her behaviour.
We felt the pebble pot would not only help with her behaviour but start to teach her the value of money and teach her she needs to earn it and it shouldn't just be handed to her. She has little task like helping me unload the dishwasher (she's passes me the plastic bits) tidying toys away and put her dirty clothes in the wash basket, are examples of things that will help her earn more pebbles. Pebbles= pennies and so far its working.
If you have a feisty four year old, or a child of any age, let me know in the comments how you do discipline. I would love to hear and gain new ways of dealing with her changing behaviour, and shortly Charlie's aswell!
Thank you so much for reading.
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