School and Custody issues

[TheGeekess]

I'm trying to do positive reinforcement. I have told him over and over that he gets X if he behaves. The problem is that I don't hear about the little things. I only hear about his issues. School is the problem area.

I will try to go to his school with him again. It's hard to juggle my schedule.

No, that's not how you do it. Children need to learn to behave because it's expected of them to behave, not because they get a bribe to behave. The behaviour escalates and by the time you've got a teen, you've created a monster.

 

[CJane]

When he's misbehaving in school, he gets lectured, punished, grounded

Honestly, remember that he's FIVE, not FIFTEEN. Grounded??? For real?

Think along the lines of this:

Tool: Try reverse rewards
Age: 3 to 8 years
How it works: Take a page from teachers everywhere — kids respond much better to positive reinforcement than to reproach and punishment. And they also like structure and clear expectations. Ruth Peters, the clinical psychologist in Clearwater, Florida, advises parents to take advantage of these qualities by setting up a system of rewards. You can make this system even more effective by reversing the usual rules — instead of giving rewards for good behavior, take them away for bad behavior.

Real-life application: Put a few things your child loves — these could be a Hershey's kiss, a new colored pencil, and a card good for an extra bedtime story — in a jar or box as the day's rewards. Then draw three smiley faces on a piece of paper and tape it to the jar. If your child breaks a rule or otherwise misbehaves, you cross out a smiley face and one treat disappears from the jar. An hour or so before bedtime, you give your child everything that remains.

We did this with a jar of pennies. Each kiddo started each week with a roll of pennies in their jar (because hey, it's only .50, but it LOOKS like a lot of money) and each time they acted up, they had to go get 2 pennies out of the jar and bring them to me. At the end of the week, they got whatever was left in their jar.

The reason it works is that it's clear, concise, and it makes sense to them. PLUS they can SEE the money disappearing and they want to make it STOP disappearing. It's MUCH more effective than giving them X in order to get them to behave.

So, every time junior comes home with a negative report, he has to take a specific number of pennies out of the jar. (or whatever is in it, doesn't matter if it's jellybeans or anything else that has value to him) A good report, you congratulate him, but don't GIVE him anything - all verbal and emotional reward. On the days he has to give you pennies, you discuss the report, accept the pennies, maybe comment about how many are left, and then go on with your life.

Do NOT make a huge ginormous deal about the misbehaving - lavishing NEGATIVE attention on him is going to be no more effective than lavishing positive attention on him. At that age, attention is good - no matter what.

Don't think in terms of punishment - think in terms of logical consequences. And for gawd's sake, you don't LECTURE or GROUND a kid who doesn't have the cognitive abilities to 1) pay attention to a lecture or 2) grasp why they're grounded or even what it means.

 

[amh56]

I like the reverse rewards idea, thank you.

Everything came to a head on Friday, with a major incident at school. It resulted in agreeing that I, my wife and my mother will take turns attending school with him. Work has agreed to work with me on my schedule.

 

[Ohiogal]

Thank you all for your responses.

The sodas always go directly into the trash. My son doesn't even notice by the time we get home. He gets water when it's late, and juice if it's not too close to bedtime. Once in a GREAT while he'll get Sprite, but even that's rare with me.

I'd love to have him take a nap, but he absolutely refuses. I can make him lie down, but he won't sleep. The only time he does fall asleep (outside of bedtime) is once in a while on the ride home in the car. But that's not common.

I understand that moving her visits to Friday will not impact her choices, but it would give me a chance to de-program him over the weekend before he goes back to school.

His behavior has been so bad that the school I have him in is threatening to revoke his open-enrollment status. Our neighborhood school does not get good marks, and I don't want him going there if I can help it.

I'm just trying to get my son a good education and teach him to be a good kid. He is, when he's with me and my family, but it doesn't seem to carry over into his school life. I don't know what to do.

If the visits are court ordered for Wednesdays as supervised then you dont' have a right to change the days without mom's agreement.

 

[frylover]

This is not legal advice, but simply a practical point.

You can't FORCE someone to go to sleep.

My oldest, who is now 12, NEVER napped much. I remember when she was three months and I was exhaused and depressed, dreading her falling asleep on the ten minute ride home from the mall, because if she slept for that ten minutes she was good for another two or three HOURS! She has taken maybe 3 naps since she was two and a half. She would nicely lay down at daycare, in her bed here at home, on her rest mat in kindergarten...and not sleep. Never made a peep, didn't get up until she was given permission to, but sleep...forget it. Today, she can go to a sleepover, stay up till all hours, and go till bedtime with no sleep.

 

[amh56]

If the visits are court ordered for Wednesdays as supervised then you dont' have a right to change the days without mom's agreement.

Thank you, Ohiogal. I didn't really think I had that right, but I was hoping.

On an "Update" note, we have been attending school with my son for three days now, and the teacher says his behavior has improved over what she saw without a parental figure in the classroom. It's still not where it should be, but it's getting there.

And his mother sent him home fed and without a soda!

 

[Isis1]

Oh that's just sad. There's a SO MUCH easier and more pleasant way to do the nap thing. Your way is just way way too much work and causes so much unnecessary frustration for both of you. Why do some parents think that this whole raising a kid has to be a constant fight full of control issues?

Instead of making nap time a horrid thing to be dreaded, take a little time out and lay down With your kid and read a book. DD and I LOVED 'quiet time' when she was little. 9 times out of 10 she'd fall asleep. After awhile, she'd fall asleep w/in just a few minutes. The times she didn't, she at least spent some time lying still and resting that little body, and that would do. There was no crankiness, no getting frustrated, no getting exhausted. Just a nice short break in the day enjoying a quiet moment with your child...

that way would be wonderful, if i didn't have 2 other children to care for while i'm teaching one to take a nap. and it worked for me. and him. different strokes, different folks.