Sunday at church I made an amazing breakthrough. My 4 and 5-year-olds can be tamed with shield-shaped cardboard necklaces. I only had four of them on Sunday, but they are all members of the anarchy branch of the class. Their favorite things are jumping up on their chairs, turning out the lights, and throwing crayons.
I've been struggling with them for over a month, wondering if I needed to praise more good behavior or condemn more bad behavior. I was really resisting any kind of bribery, especially when they started asking me if I'd brought them sweeties each week. No, I never do. I don't really believe in it, especially since I sit behind these kids in the last church meeting and they always have bags and buckets (literally buckets) of candy that they munch on during the service. They told me this week that their old teacher brought them sweets every week. That makes me want to kick their old teacher in the teeth.
Anyway, Sunday I took in the necklaces and I told them they could wear them if they behaved and that I would take them away if they misbehaved (they can get them back if they shape back up before class ends). If they still have a necklace at the end of class, they get a bear sticker to put on a chart.
They LOVE the necklaces. They are like different children when wearing them. I'm so glad the necklaces worked, because if they hadn't, my only back up plan was tasering.
3 comments:
look at you becoming a parent while still growing the baby. Nice work.
HAHAHAHA! This is awesome. I'm very impressed.
I wish I had thought of that!! Btw, when I read the subject in Google Reader, I thought "beasts" had an R. Thought it was going to be a much more interesting post. =)
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