Parenting Hack - providing quick and visible feedback
I came up with a pretty effective technique with the kids recently. We're still all working out the details, but I am so pleased with it I wanted to share it. To start off, I think my kids are wonderful. They are smart, creative, and have all kinds of good qualities. But they also frustrate the heck out of me at times.
The precipitating incident the other day was that daughter #1 wanted to read a book that daughter #2 had bought with her birthday money. Daughter #2 hadn't finished reading the book yet, and in daughter #1's opinion, she was taking too long. Much bickering and arguing ensued. There had been several other recent incidents of this nature, along with what I perceived to be a general lack of responsibility, initiative, and whining over trivial issues. They are getting pretty big (10 and 11 currently) and I think they really ought to be able to do things like pick up after themselves, make their own lunches, negotiate disagreements with each other without drama, and so on.
The incident that I referred to above touched off something in me, and I got really upset. There was far too much yelling on my part, and as is sometimes my practice, the dispensing of empty threats. One of my threats was that since they obviously didn't appreciate all the stuff they had, I was just going to take away all their books, toys, and extra-curricular activities, and from now on all they would do was school work and helping out around the house.
One of the hardest things about parenting, we have discovered, is that disciplining your kids requires doing things that you don't want to do. Lets take the example of being at the store, and the child throwing a tantrum about not getting some desired item. The options in that situation for many parents seem to be to yell at the kid, ignore the kid, or give in to the kids demands. What I would consider the best approach - leaving the store - isn't usually considered, because that inconveniences that parents enormously. And so it is with me. They don't seem to appreciate all the running around we do to get them to ballet and Tae Kwon Do and so on. If I really wanted them to start appreciating those things, it might be good to take those things away for a while. But that isn't what I really want, so I had to come up with something else.
OK, enough rambling and background nonsense. The thing that I came up with was that I told the girls I was going to just start keeping track of their behavior. When they did something I didn't like, I would write it down. When they did something above and beyond expectations, I would write that down too. I have been doing this for about a week now, and it seems to be helping. Rather than getting mad at the girls, or raising my voice, or getting into an argument, I just write it down. I just have a sheet of typing paper on the refrigerator door, and I've taken to using red and green pens. The girls have also learned that they can write stuff down if they do something really noteworthy and I wasn't there to write it down.
The quick feedback, the lack of emotion in it, and the persistent view are all things that have helped bring more family harmony. I like it.