Creative Consequences ~ A How-to Guide for the Parentally Challenged

Didn't You Mention Creative Consequences?

yes, I did ~ I tend to get carried away with narrative

• Reasonable repetition makes things sink in...
  I use this for simple things that aren't getting attention. After asking my son to not slam the car door for the billionth time, I warned him that doing it again would result in him opening and closing the door softly 25 times. He was not thrilled, but I told him to make a game out of it and see just how lightly he could push the door and get it to properly latch. Needless to say, the car doors are no longer in danger of being rattled off the hinges. Obviously if one set doesn't create the change you're after, add additional sets with slight increases in the number of reps. I used this same approach to correct running in the house. It started with just coming back to where he started and then walking, but that wasn't enough, so it was bumped up to laps in the hallway (the hallway is all of about fifteen feet). Over a span of about a month, he must have walked 500 laps, but he rarely runs in the house anymore.
• Writing makes you think...
  Writing can take many forms and should be geared towards the age of your child. Obviously, having a four-year-old write a four page essay on why he shouldn't color on the dining room walls with crayons isn't going to be effective because he won't be able to complete it. Unless you've got some sort of writing prodigy on your hands, keep it age appropriate. I started with writing sentences (again, the repetition thing) and now I use a question and short answer format. It worked well. So well that the other day my son was displaying excellent table manners and asked me to do questions about manners so he could show off what he knew. Talk about making a mom feel awesome!
• A new game for siblings...
  Siblings tend to fight. You would too if you were sequestered with the same person all the time. It seems to happen when you've had one of those horrid days, too. Parents have used hugging, hand-holding (a nice one if you're in public), standing nose to nose, rubbing booties together and making lists of good traits about the other to entice kids to get along. Well, some kids just don't get along with their siblings and forcing them to hug isn't going to change it. Some of these tactics are terrific if you're in the grocery store and they won't quit pestering each other. The threat of holding hands can straighten a kid out long enough to make it through a trip to the store. But what about the tug-of-war times when they're fighting over the same item or the right to pick whatever it is they both want to pick (hopefully not their noses). A grab bag of questions may help. Keep a list of questions around (or make one up on the fly) and have each child write down a response to the question (or more than one, if necessary). Then, whichever child can correctly give the answer the other child gave, gets to pick whatever it was they both wanted. The questions should be personal in nature, so it encourages them to get to know each other.
• Grounding, in a very literal way...
  I read this idea here (see number 6) and thought it was a nice twist on the normal restriction. Younger kids seem to respond to timeout much better than teens. Often they're happy to be in their room doing nothing. So the idea of a literal grounding by going outside and working with the ground can be quite effective. Whether used in the same way as the example or as a consequence they complete alone is up to you. If they finish pulling all the weeds in your yard, be sure to tell them the neighbors could use some help, as well. I'm sure you can find someone in your neighborhood who wouldn't mind the assistance.