Virtue
I spent the morning with a new friend, as I have become aware that poor Tamsin spends nearly all her time playing with (or near) big girls and has hardly any playmates her own age. Come September she’s going to be billy no mates if I don’t do something. My new friend spent the whole time putting Tamsin’s new friend on the ubiquitous naughty step, even though as far as I could see she was not being the least bit naughty, while saying oh she is very tired we had a bad night and she started early this morning. Yet the child was not allowed to go for a nap because NapTimeâ„¢ was at 1. This is not my style – we don’t have a naughty step and I was entirely taken aback once when a visitor asked me where ours was as she wanted to put her child on it. But when the new friend asked me what my discipline technique was, I hedged, ummed and ahhed, muttered something about not being a fan of The Step, and changed the subject. So I am trying to get it clear in my own head (hence this long rambling post).
(She also looked at me askance when I gave the wrong answer to the question “do you have a routine?”)
I’ve been thinking a bit even before she asked, in the way that surely all parents of preschoolers or second toddlers (who are far more toddler than the first ever was) must, about rewards, “incentives”, punishments and so forth. I know I don’t usually go in for talking about my parenting philosophy (for want of a better term: I hope you do know, dear reader, that I am very much not the sort of person to have a parenting philosophy of any description) but bear with me and I’ll tell you all about the weeds on the allotment again soon.
So, I’ve been doing some reading – ivillage, naturally; Alfie Kohn; Faber & Mazlish; Scott Noelle; Naomi Aldort (though I cannot finish this book it is not for want of trying. It is far too preachy yet hand-wavingly unconcrete for me, but that’s not it. The main problem is – forgive me, I know she is American; I know I should translate; I know I should just get over it – I just cannot get past the very idea that I should say gee, what a bummer to my kids. Shudder.) For those of you who are reluctant – whyever would that be – to dash straight down to Borders*, this article gives you an idea of the sorts of ideas I’ve been mulling. Interesting, eh? (Topical, too, as this was in the news today.)
I am not entirely anti reward. If I didn’t reward myself with a lovely latte and a biscuit, goodness knows this house would be even dustier than it is now. But. This week as I collected M from preschool I was told that today she had got three stickers and as a result could choose a lurid lolly to take home! Wow. So, not unreasonably, I asked M (as her tongue rapidly turned blue) what the stickers had been for. One, she was pretty sure, had been for eating all her lunch. (This sets me off in a whole other direction: food battles is one of my things: especially with girls in this day and age, we pay as little obvious attention as possible to what and whether they are eating. But moving swiftly on). The others….nope, not sure. Being good, possibly. So I asked Katie, the preschool teacher. Who told me they were for “erm, stuff like sitting still and things”. Surely, surely if a child is being encouraged to build up her three stickers so she can get a lolly, someone in charge, and most definitely that child, should know what they are being given out for?
So: I continue to ponder in a conclusion-less manner whilst never getting out of the house without screeching get your shoes on right now! Which works: shoes go on and we are out of the door in a flash. It would just be nice to do it in a more peaceful fashion.
Of course I didn’t say anything at preschool. My other piece of parenting philosophy, which is as well applied to preschool and everybody else as children, is pick your battles.
*or your local independent bookshop
July 18th, 2008 18:49
The stickers won’t have been for Mag having done good things – they will have been to discourage others from doing bad things. Classic technique – child A is being a pita and won’t sit still, you ignore them and loudly praise child B (Maggie) for sitting beautifully and give them a lovely sticker in the hope child A will notice and try to sit nicely too!! I do it all the time!
S
xx
July 21st, 2008 08:58
Reward so often is seen as material- what about the reward for a child of having achieved something- you can see it in their eyes- they don’t need to be given something for it (though in that type of instance at a school/kindy, a sticker would help flag the achievement to the parents).
When encouraging desired behaviour our reward is often an extra story at bedtime- much cheaper!!
July 21st, 2008 16:30
No routine here – toddlers can’t read schedules, apparently. They just don’t try.
We do “rewards”, but not for every little thing or else it becomes meaningless (as you found with the stickers.) We save them for fairly big things like when we were potty training Jack (e.g. going a whole day without an accident got him a little sticker on a chart, then at the end of the week, he got a little toy car.) Otherwise, good behaviour gets lots of praise. Cheap, and it seems to work.
I wish someone would give me sweeties for eating all of my lunch.