Good Manners on Monday (on Tuesday) # 5

The Manners Relapse.

earn coin or loose coin with your manners

As a parent, I work hard on ensuring that my children use good manners, not only at home, but most importantly out in public too. It brings me great joy to hear from a teacher/parent/friend/stranger that my children use good manners. It means we are doing our job well. However, there has been a bit of a Manners Relapse in the home.

It seems that Junior is forgetting to use his "P's and Q's". All I ask is for a simple please when asking for something and a thank you in return. Oh, and no whining. That's not too much to ask of an eight year old...is it? Mini Hoges (4 years younger) is doing really well on the Manners front, we only occassionally have to prompt him.

So my solution is to start a Manners Jar. A bit like a swear jar. Except that with this jar, you EARN money for using manners. 10 cents each time, without prompting. The jar also encourages children being compliant when asked to do something. Eg: "Sure mum, I'd be happy to take the recycling out", as opposed to whinging and whining about contributing to the household chores. 

Last week I wrote about finding your currency in my post about Discipline. And the use of money is definitely a form of currency that my kids understand. And so, failure to use manners (please and thankyou) will result in a 10 cent fine. A first reminder at the start of the day is ok, but if you have to keep reminding them to use manners, especially the older kids, then the fining begins.


Do you have a creative solution for reinforcing good manners?

Be Happy, 
Nicola

Discipline - what do you do?

skate park currency

Discipline is one of those 'not so fun' moments of parenting. As your children get older, so do your expectations of their behaviours. Therefore the need to discipline becomes more apparent. I have two sons, aged 8 and nearly 4. We are good parents and tolerate lots, within reason. We use a 'thinking chair' as opposed to 'time out' or 'naughty spot'. The boys have tasks or jobs to give them a sense of responsiblity and contribution to the family unit.

However, of late, we are needing to resort to a firmer form of discipline with our 8 year old. You see, he is getting his name on the board at school, regularly. Not for being naughty as such, but for being distracted or distracting others on the way back to his desk after sharpening his pencil. Or for talking when his teacher is talking. Or for talking too loudly in class. Or accessing restricted library computer files from his class room computer during free class time. He is a clever kid. And these are minor behaviour slips, most of which I think he will grow out of with awareness and maturity.

But it does raise the issue of discipline. What to do to show our son that his teacher is the boss when he is at school? At first we took away the Star Wars Lego for a week. Didn't work. A friend suggested grounding for a week, as this works well for her son, who is also Juniors' bestie. Kind of worked. But the message still wasn't sinking in. We needed a currency, and my brilliant husband found it in the Skate Park.


If Junior got his name on the board this week, he would not be able to go the Skate Park on the weekend with Dad for a skate. The threat of this alone last Friday night was enough to reduce Junior to tears. The message had finally sunk in. 

So, it seems that the Skate Park is Junior's currency at the moment. He has had a great week at school, with no name on the board and so got to go to the Skate Park on the weekend.

What types of disciplinary methods do you use in your family? What is your kids' currency?

Be Happy
Nicola