Lollyellen
10-01-2009, 01:50 PM
After one largish tantrum involving a whole lot of crying - mine, incidentally... not my preschooler :no: ...and eternal weariness of the day in and day out rebellion, refusal to listen/obey, and just general bad 'tude put forth by my almost 3 year old on a consistent basis, I have had enough.
Yesterday, after a particularly grueling day, I cried (to my husband, on the phone), I plotted in my mind, and now I'm taking a few huge deep breaths...and am ready to unleash a new, very Supernannyish (if I do say so myself! :D ) "Happy Day Ball" behavior modification technique on Charlie...The thought process being "Let's get those listening skills down so we can start having happy days...K...?!"
...Besides...I'm afraid if I don't try it, I fear I might end up stomping off to the nearest Walmart sheepishly searching out a nice clean flyswatter, with a not-so-nice motive behind the acquisition...the old tried & true technique which comes highly recommended by my mom, for "behavior modification," if you get my drift... :uhoh: Worked for her...I can attest to that.
Anyhow, so today I tromped off to Walmart's sports section for a big bucket o' ping pong balls as the main material in my technique -
'So...What 3 year old kid wouldn't enjoy filling a bucket with ping pong balls...?' I ask myself...Well, let's hope Charlie will...
I figure I can use the quiet time before naptime and again before bedtime at night, as a time we can *reflect on our day* and determine if Charlie has made a majority of GOOD CHOICES or NOT GOOD CHOICES. If he's made a majority of good choices, he earns a ball to put into his bucket. If not, then he misses out on getting to choose a ball to add to his bucket. Breaking it down into earning a ball two times a day gives him a fair shot at trying again by evening, if he makes too many mistakes the first part of the day. The balls can eventually add up to earning a cool prize after reaching a certain limit...or not. Right now, Charlie'd probably be cool with just filling the bucket up with balls, LOL.
And I made the balls goooood too. So he'd WANT to choose. Hehheh.
Charlie likes Elvis music, and watching Elvis videos on YouTube with his brother...and he likes his hair in an Elvis 'do (much to the horror of his brother, Charlie wore his hair like that to Sam's teacher-conference the other day). So I made an Elvis ball with a Sharpie! (You can see it partially, in the pictures below, LOL.)
He also loves kitties, so I made a couple of kitty balls as well. Along with some goofy guy faces, a dude with a mohawk and an earring, and plenty of guys with their tongues lolling out in silly ways and eyes crossed. I also bought some "rock star" stickers and some sparkly happy face stickers and decorated a few of the ping pong balls with those...
I put the decorated balls into a plastic ziplock, punched a couple of holes in it, and threaded a ribbon thru. It can hang on his door - or anywhere. I labelled it, and we'll talk about exactly what the label means.
The bucket we're filling is an old Playdoh tools bucket that comes in handy for just about EVERYTHING...man, I love that thing! Whatever we paid for those Playdoh tools has paid for itself over and over again by way of bucket-usage. :tup:
Are you ready to see my home-made, made-from-scratch behavior modification technique???
Here's a picture (http://www.maternitycorner.com/lollyellen/happydayballs.jpg). And here (http://www.maternitycorner.com/lollyellen/happydayballs2.jpg).
So, going forward, we're implementing the Happy Day ball technique. Wish us a few Happy Days, will ya? I'll report back any results over the next few days...
Yesterday, after a particularly grueling day, I cried (to my husband, on the phone), I plotted in my mind, and now I'm taking a few huge deep breaths...and am ready to unleash a new, very Supernannyish (if I do say so myself! :D ) "Happy Day Ball" behavior modification technique on Charlie...The thought process being "Let's get those listening skills down so we can start having happy days...K...?!"
...Besides...I'm afraid if I don't try it, I fear I might end up stomping off to the nearest Walmart sheepishly searching out a nice clean flyswatter, with a not-so-nice motive behind the acquisition...the old tried & true technique which comes highly recommended by my mom, for "behavior modification," if you get my drift... :uhoh: Worked for her...I can attest to that.
Anyhow, so today I tromped off to Walmart's sports section for a big bucket o' ping pong balls as the main material in my technique -
'So...What 3 year old kid wouldn't enjoy filling a bucket with ping pong balls...?' I ask myself...Well, let's hope Charlie will...
I figure I can use the quiet time before naptime and again before bedtime at night, as a time we can *reflect on our day* and determine if Charlie has made a majority of GOOD CHOICES or NOT GOOD CHOICES. If he's made a majority of good choices, he earns a ball to put into his bucket. If not, then he misses out on getting to choose a ball to add to his bucket. Breaking it down into earning a ball two times a day gives him a fair shot at trying again by evening, if he makes too many mistakes the first part of the day. The balls can eventually add up to earning a cool prize after reaching a certain limit...or not. Right now, Charlie'd probably be cool with just filling the bucket up with balls, LOL.
And I made the balls goooood too. So he'd WANT to choose. Hehheh.
Charlie likes Elvis music, and watching Elvis videos on YouTube with his brother...and he likes his hair in an Elvis 'do (much to the horror of his brother, Charlie wore his hair like that to Sam's teacher-conference the other day). So I made an Elvis ball with a Sharpie! (You can see it partially, in the pictures below, LOL.)
He also loves kitties, so I made a couple of kitty balls as well. Along with some goofy guy faces, a dude with a mohawk and an earring, and plenty of guys with their tongues lolling out in silly ways and eyes crossed. I also bought some "rock star" stickers and some sparkly happy face stickers and decorated a few of the ping pong balls with those...
I put the decorated balls into a plastic ziplock, punched a couple of holes in it, and threaded a ribbon thru. It can hang on his door - or anywhere. I labelled it, and we'll talk about exactly what the label means.
The bucket we're filling is an old Playdoh tools bucket that comes in handy for just about EVERYTHING...man, I love that thing! Whatever we paid for those Playdoh tools has paid for itself over and over again by way of bucket-usage. :tup:
Are you ready to see my home-made, made-from-scratch behavior modification technique???
Here's a picture (http://www.maternitycorner.com/lollyellen/happydayballs.jpg). And here (http://www.maternitycorner.com/lollyellen/happydayballs2.jpg).
So, going forward, we're implementing the Happy Day ball technique. Wish us a few Happy Days, will ya? I'll report back any results over the next few days...