Leave no stone unturned when it comes to choices

UPDATED (6/14/2019): Summer break is upon us! That means fun in the sun and easy relaxing days with your kiddos, right? Well maybe part of the time, but if you were a fly on the wall in our house, you'd see my kids' budding "independence" in the form of rebelling against chores coupled with sibling WWF style fighting and my favorite: whining.

There's nothing I want more than to stay home with my kids during the summer, but let's be honest, sometimes I just want to run away because of the seemingly constant battle with my beautiful little spawn. So how in the world is a momma who just wants to have fun suppose to properly and with the least amount of drama navigate summer break attitudes and antics?

It's been nearly a year since we employed the good choice/bad choice jars and I gotta say, it's one of the best parenting choices we've made. My kids begged to start it all over again when we ran out of choice stones. So here we are, still at it and finding so much success in this method!

I am an expert, at pretty much nothing! But one thing I'm super good at is persevering until I find a solution to a problem! We have been battling bad attitudes and sassy-ness for a while now. This summer when I actually got to be home with my kids for the first time ever, it got so bad that I started giving myself timeouts just because I didn’t know what to do with my two little angels! I felt frustrated and overwhelmed much of the time because I wanted my kids to have a fun summer but also continue to instill responsibility, good habits and manners.

Over the years, we’ve tried all kinds of rewards and punishments and consequences and lectures and chore charts, etc., all of which flopped almost immediately! What I hate more than the attitudes and sassy-ness though, is the way situations escalate and everyone ends up hating life. I mean, talk about screaming and yelling and having no peace in our house. When it was good, it was great, but when it was bad, it was downright awful! Can you relate? Between the power struggles, lack of consistency and failure to follow through with consequences because we're tired (parenting is hard...LOL) I knew I had to come up with something different.

There are many articles that say the proper reward to consequence ratio is anywhere from 8:1 – 5:1. But let’s be honest here, as a busy parent, it can be tough to keep track of good vs bad and some days it just seems like the negative far exceeds the positive. Plus, when you’re smack dab in the middle of the messy days of parenting, it’s just a complete blur and you can often go to bed feeling like a failure; maybe you were too hard on the little demons…I mean angels, maybe you weren’t hard enough on them, I mean you don’t want to raise little jerks, right?

What's a mom to do? I have read parenting books galore and articles by many professionals. Each and every one had great ideas, but most left me feeling overwhelmed and frankly like I still needed an answer so I didn’t feel like I was failing my kids. Enter, Pinterest of course! Who the heck better to go to for advice and direction than Pinterest moms?! I looked at different suggestions and pinned my little heart out one evening. I felt in my heart of hearts that I wanted my kids involved and feeling good about their choices. One of our strategies in the past had been to make them choose their consequence for poor choices and it freaking worked like a charm. Much to my surprise, my kids chose consequences that not only fit the “crime” but were also harsher than I would have chosen!

After pinning with wild abandon, I came up with a hybrid plan for our family. Oh and I should also mention that I really wanted the solution to be cute too! I am most definitely a fan of function; however I think when something looks good it’s more exciting to utilize too! The very next day I was a woman on a mission in Hobby Lobby; inspired and armed with a plan and a need for a good deal. Okay, fine, I didn’t have a complete plan, I was partially letting Hobby Lobby tell me the rest of the plan. I knew I wanted containers of some sort and something the kids could drop in the containers to keep track of their choices. Beyond that, I followed the sale signs and wandered around for about an hour…I did wander with intention and inspiration, though!

Mission freaking accomplished, and with time to pick up my misbehaving beautiful spawn from school. That night we sat down as a family and talked about the different choices we all have in life (again). Then I launched into my plan and immediately their excitement was evident with the bunches of questions they had and even suggestions! I showed them the glass stones I chose for each of them in their favorite hues. We let them come up with their rewards and consequences and all of us went to work being mindful of the jars, our choices and behaviors.

After they chose the rewards and consequences, the mission was simple for our kids: try to get to each line in the good choice jar and try not to reach the lines in the bad choice jars. Good choices in our house are things like, being helpful and respectful, doing chores in a timely manner, listening to instructions and having a good attitude. You might be able to figure out then, that bad choices are things like being disrespectful and unhelpful, being unkind and not doing chores or taking too long on chores.

For the last few weeks we've been diligent about rewarding them with a stone for good choices and when they make a bad choice, telling them to add a bad choice stone. Much to our surprise, there have been very few arguments with bad choice stones when we tell them to put one in that jar. And on the other hand, they’ve been so happy and proud of themselves with every good choice stone.

The results so far? Less arguing, less escalation, less tears and more happiness. Both kids have made it to the first good choice line and were so happy! Ian is 5 and chose more cuddle time at night and an extra book. He is our night owl who never wants our bedtime ritual of reading and cuddling to end, so this was awesome for all of us! Ivy is 8 and got to choose what we ate for dinner! She chose waffles so I made sure to go all out and made it a feast with toppings and extra sugar.

Aside from less arguments and a more peaceful household, do you know what the biggest surprise is for us as parents? How few bad choice stones there are compared to the good choices! Listen, I know my kids are good kids and most likely yours are too, but when you're in the day-to-day hustle and bustle and monotony of life, those bad choices can seem so much worse than they really are. It’s easy to question your every parenting move and think you’re failing. What an amazing visual aide for us too!

Since I strive to be the student, I would love to know how you manage behaviors in your house.

Will you be trying this strategy?

I’d love to hear from you. We must always be willing to try and fail and be the student.

#parentinghacks #bethestudent #betterchoices