The Incredible Years – Week Six

Please click here for last weeks post

SPONTANEOUS INCENTIVES

This week we talked about spontaneous incentives. Now the thing I really liked about this session was that we talked about not just rewarding our children but also ourselves and our partners (something that is often easy to forget)! We were reminded that toddlers are still small and don’t have the memory for reward charts and such like yet, so the more we catch them in the moment the more we can reinforce this good behaviour.

My thinking was completely turned on its head. I am so very negative towards myself. I never realised the extent of this and it has made me question my attitude to myself. A lot of food for thought here!

I think the difficulty is that a lot of people feel that over congratulating oneself can be a sign of arrogance and as a result we tend to put ourselves down.  Obviously it’s not a case of wondering around with an air of smugness constantly telling yourself how brilliant you are but on the other hand a ‘Mummy has done a great job cleaning the house, she’s very pleased’, doesn’t go amiss! Now I am happy with the knowledge that congratulating myself for a job well done is not only good for myself but fantastic for Little Man to see also. It’s a great ego booster. After all, I can’t tell him to be proud of himself but not follow through for me!

HOMEWORK

We were told to increase the number of time we praised our child, give a sticker for good behaviour, praise another member of the family, give ourselves a treat for good work done. As previously stated the praise has been working fantastically for Little Man and he is getting very good at blowing his own trumpet. He loves cars and animals  and, as luck would have it, I have kept hold of various ones from children’s parties that we have been to.

OK, so the sticker giving did not go down at all well. I caught him being good and praised him, this was fine but the second I gave him a sticker a tantrum ensued!! Not what I was planning at all!! He tore the sticker off him and looked at it with disgust. Lesson for Mummy? Might be quite a good idea to discuss these things with him first so he knows what’s going on!! Seems a bit obvious now!

Praising hubby went much better. I think we have both got stuck in a rut of taking each other for granted. Hubby helped me around the house and I thanked him. He looked a bit taken aback, smiled and pointed out all the lovely things that I had done to help. It was nice. Definitely something I will continue.