Lately I've been trying to think of ways to reward Ellie more instead of focusing so much on her negative behavior. A new friend of mine made this suggestion: set out 5 m&m's on the window sill before lunch, and everytime the child disobeyes take away one m&m. How every many are left at nap time are the childs. Then, reset and start again after naps. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical: I thought that was too many m&m's & I wasn't sure where the role of spanking fit into that. But, I was excited to experiment (as I always am on my children) so I gave it a go. The first day Ellie received 3 m&m's before lunch & I don't remember after lunch. The next day she received a few here & there, but the 3rd day she received 0 m&m's & here's where the funny part of the story comes into play: Ellie saw that her m&m's were gone. Being the creative girl that she is, when I left the dinner table to put fussy Saedi to bed, Ellie has picked the carrot circles out of my bowl of veggies & lined them up on the window sill turning the carrots into her reward. She proceeded to eat the carrots one by one...all except for one, that is. So, what did she do with the last one? She got her baby doll, scolded baby doll for disobeying, told baby doll that she didn't get the last m&m since she disobeyed Mommy & then put baby doll in time out...It was hilarious! One, for the fact that my child turned eating vegetables into a reward & Two, for outwitting me again! She is like her Daddy that way. wink wink. Oh, and I learned that 10 m&m's a day is not too many for us...wow we have a lot of behavior issues!
