Find Your Child’s Currency

We talk about why positive reinforcement helps but cannot be the only discipline strategy if you want real cooperation at home. We share a simple way to find what your child truly values so consequences actually land and boundaries finally stick. 
• using specific praise to reinforce cooperation with new routines
• finding your child’s “currency” and using it wisely 
• adjusting consequences when old punishments stop working 
• brainstorming creative consequences and letting kids help choose them 

If you have any questions or need a sounding board, you can message me on Instagram at BeTheirParent. And if you found this episode helpful, follow, set up automatic downloads, review, and share. I'd appreciate it.

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Sheila, and I'm here to help you be their parent. On the last episode, we talked about how to determine if your child is running the house and some steps to start to take it back. One of the things that many schools are relying on these days is positive reinforcement. This definitely has a place in our homes, but it can't be the only way to get a child to cooperate and do the right thing. I used the example in the last episode of setting up only having an hour of screen time after school for your child. So say that in this scenario they are adjusting. There aren't as many meltdowns, or maybe they see how much fun they can have during doing other things and they're fully cooperating. You could now surprise them by ordering in pizza and watching a movie together, going to the park, or baking cookies together. And then you tell them you've done such a great job adjusting to our new screen time routine. I thought you would enjoy this surprise. That would go a long way in celebrating the right response to a parent's directions. However, positive reinforcement is only going to get you so far. There has to be some negative consequences to their actions for them to understand that they can't always get their way. And this is where it gets tricky. In talking to parents and fellow teachers, we are seeing a trend where kids don't seem to care what you do to them. This is challenging, but at some point you will need to find what matters to them and leverage that as a consequence. Around our home, we call that finding their currency. It's the thing they value. It may be an actual thing or it may be something intangible. Either way, using it as a negative consequence should help to turn your kid around. For example, we had a season where our oldest daughter didn't like being alone in her room. We would send her to her room to sit on her bed and think about our actions, and that worked for us. Then things started to change, and we realized that going to her room wasn't much of a punishment anymore because she'd sit on her bed and look around her room and decide what she would play with when she was done with her timeout. So we adjusted for her currency and sent her to our room to sit on our bed and think about her action. That adjustment helped us both out and we had better success with making a simple change to our consequence. Our son was very much into electronics as a little guy. We had many friends that would give him their devices that no longer worked. He'd pretend with them and connect them with pieces of string as pretend chords. There was a time he crossed a line that needed a strong consequence. So we took all of the devices away and kept them in our room for 24 hours. He didn't cross that line again because he didn't want the consequence of losing his gadgets. As you make adjustments and hold firm the boundaries you want for your child, you may need to get creative with consequences. What matters to them? Playing with others or being alone? What do they play with the most? Is there an activity that they love doing that you could take away for a day? What about making them do something they don't enjoy? Could they clean the bathroom? Write sentences. I know, old school, but you know, it could be a deterrent. Um, you could write have them write an apology letter to someone they hurt. What about pulling weeds? I've known parents that have taken absolutely everything out of their kids' room except their bed, and then the kid earned their things back over time. Now, figuring out a consequence could also include a conversation with your kids to determine consequences for things. You never know. Some kids are harder on themselves than we would be, and they may give you a great idea for a consequence for a really disrespectful behavior. One thing you do need to keep in mind is that some currency you use as an incentive or punishment may work for all your kids, and some will only work for one. For example, we made sure our kids understood our expectation about the right response when they got angry from the time they were preschool age. Kids get angry and that's okay. Going to their room to be alone and calm down is a great strategy to self-regulate. Slamming the bedroom door wasn't going to be tolerated. All three of them knew that if they slammed their door in anger, they would lose their door for 24 hours. And where we live, it can get a little windy in the afternoon, early evening, and if we had windows open, it would cause a cross breeze that would slam the doors. Both of our girls would immediately pop their heads out of their room and tell us it was just the wind. We already knew that, but they always felt the need to make sure they didn't lose their door. Our son didn't care. He never did blame the wind. We all just knew. But losing their bedroom door was a strong currency for our daughters. Not so much for our son. So are you coming up with some ideas that you can leverage for both positive reinforcement as well as a consequence? If you're not sure where to start, just watch your kid for a couple of days and see what they prioritize spending their time and energy on, and that will give you a great starting point. And if the first consequence doesn't work, don't give up. Keep looking for ways to be creative in your discipline. You will find a way. You're doing a great job, and your kids will appreciate your efforts. They just don't know it yet. If you have any questions or need a sounding board, you can message me on Instagram at BeTheirParent. And if you found this episode helpful, follow, set up automatic downloads, review, and share. I'd appreciate it.