Behaviour charts vs jars

I can't believe that it's been 21 weeks since Zachary entered the world!

It's been crazy, fun, at times a little hard to juggle everything but I wouldn't change it for the world.

You may have read my last post  about our challenging behaviour from the older two, in particular Alex.

We first tried a type of tick chart, with really quite basic things on such as routine tasks etc, with Alex I added 'go into school well and Sam 'eat my vegetables'. Alongside that we had Pom Pom jars which they could put a Pom Pom in if they'd had a good day or did something nice, friendly, helpful without being asked. With these things in place I am pleased to say that things have improved. The last few weeks of term were still tricky getting Alex happy about school but the difference was we didn't have to physically drag him trough the classroom door!

I will admit I was dreading the start of the summer holidays.

At the end of term, I awaited nervously as I collected Alex from the classroom as I just didn't know which Alex I would be picking up, the happy, chatty chappy or the angry, aggressive and short tempered one.

I was worried we'd have a lot of the latter over the summer holidays, especially more worried about the weeks my parents were sunning themselves in Greek islands.

It turns out James had a week off before we went camping for a week, this broke up the holiday loads, and gave me a huge extra hand with the boys over the time where I had no one else to help me!

Of course over the holidays, routine and bedtimes seem to have gone out the window, so we stopped the behaviour charts we had started for the boys, but have kept the jars that they each fill with pom poms when they have done some good.

These jars have helped massively, obviously there are still times we want to pull our hair out with the kids not listening, Alex still has the odd anger blow out, but on the whole the outbursts are much shorter (thankfully).

The jars are a simple concept, Alex and Sam each have their own jar. When they do something good, especially something without being asked, they can pop a pom, pom (or in our boy's case a cotton ball as they figured they were bigger!) in their jar. For example, Sam got one the other day as he actually got dressed and brushed his teeth without being asked, this is a HUGE deal for us at the moment as he NEVER does this.

Once the jar is full they can get a small treat, in our case that is often choosing a hot wheel car, despite having over 200 in the house already!

I am hoping with the start of school and routine we won't have to go back to the tick charts we'd had, that sort of thing isn't really me, I am too forgetful but if the behaviour slips I will have to start it up again, if they get so many ticks a day they get a pom pom. Ideally I'd love to just have the pom pom jars and keep it simple.

I'd originally written this before school went back when we were busy finishing school projects, but here we are a month in already and the holidays seem like a distant memory!