Reporting On Our 30 Day Experiment

Well, one of our boys has made it through the 30 day chart and is moving on to his second chart, by his own suggestion nonetheless. This time he wants to see a movie. I am not sure if it has as strong a pull as his Legos did, but his attitude has  changed so much and he recognizes how much better he feels as well. So, we are calling this experiment a complete success for our one boy.

Our second son has struggled, but he has improved so much that we can not say that it has failed him either. He fights it, but the chart forces him to think about where he is failing even if he doesn't like the change. It has caused us to have many conversations, but communication is good, even if it is frustrating most of the time, because it seems to be the same conversation over and over, but I have confidence that it is going to sink in and when he has his light bulb moment a huge weight is going to be lifted off of all our shoulders and we are going to sing Hallelujahs. He also wants to start a second chart so he can earn a backpack for his scouting.

His biggest problem is that he does not trust adults. I believe this stems from a rough early childhood. Both of our boys were adopted through the state. Our oldest was 18 months which is a very impressionable age. Because of his situation we believe that he went into survival mode. In survival mode his higher level thinking abilities were increased, but his emotional development was delayed. Not to mention his natural tendency to want to be older than he is.
Anyways that is for another post...maybe.

A couple of things we are finding along the way:
First, the key is once the terms are established then we have to become their biggest cheerleader. Motivation is important. Be more concerned about helping them change than punishing them for their bad behavior.

Another thing that I think is important is that we consider each child and their abilities. 30 days may work for us but 10 or 15 days may be better for younger kids, or a particularly hard challenge that our child is looking . Maybe even less to start with. The idea is not to punish them, but to help them change their behavior. Make it long enough to make them stretch, but not so long that they lose their motivation.

We have to look for opportunities to teach and communicate. We have to let them know we are not their to make them miserable. Sometimes it can get frustrating, but it is in communication that we find out either our message hasn't been clear or they really are not understanding what we are saying. We found out that sometimes our children seem to be learning from a different dictionary. The more we are able to talk the better we can decipher what they mean. We must never assume that they know what we are saying and we should never assume that they are too young to understand what we are talking about.


Anyways, I am sure we are going to learn a lot more along the way, but so far this experiment as been an answer to our prayers.