Ethan has been doing so well with everything. Forgive the bragging but he's so smart, and he loves school so much. He's sweet and takes good care of his little brothers, when he's not trying to take their toys. One of the major problems we're trying to figure out with him is food. He will not eat! He's never been a good eater, and considering this has been going on for like four years it's hard to accept the "it's just a phase" response. Like a lot of little kids he doesn't like to try new foods, but Ethan takes it to another level. Trying to get him to eat dinner usually turns into an epic battle of wills in which no one wins. We try not to make a big deal about it, we ignore it but then we demand, we bargain, we threaten, we try and trick him and he counters by screaming like a banshee and throwing a tantrum worthy of Paris Hilton, or just not eating. It's gotten to the point that his teachers have sent a note home worried he'll make himself sick because he doesn't eat much at school either. I've started packing his lunch with things I know he'll eat so that's helping with school, but not at home. I don't want him eating the same things over and over, and he needs vegetables! While I'm open to suggestions, Derek and I have decided to try something classic. Elementary school classic to be exact (I've always thought this but teachers are geniuses). We've decided to make a star chart. I'm not going to get into the psychological debate about child development, discipline and reward blah blah blah. This might work and it might not. He's not a carved egg, he'll be OK.
We're mainly trying to encourage him to eat, vegetables more than anything else (he gets two stars for eating veggies and one for everything else), but we didn't want to focus purely on that so we added some other goals we want him to reach. He has to earn a certain number of stars for the week and if he meets his goal he gets to pick a treasure from the treasure box! Who doesn't love a treasure box? It just has little dollar store toys but when we sat down with him and explained everything he was over the moon about it. It's been a couple of weeks and so far he's earned one toy, so there's still some work to do, but there's also some progress. He even tried green beans the other day!
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| I love this box! I totally stole it from my dad |
This experiment got me thinking about what goals I want to accomplish. Lately it seems hard to get much done; my current excuse is because Sammy's not sleeping through the night anymore. So, how do I get motivated? Hmmm... Derek and I were talking and we've decided to make star charts for ourselves. Why not right? We each have different things we want to work on and knowing my habitual 'all or nothing' mentality Derek helped me set reasonable goals. If we meet our goals for the week we earn a $5 credit. Last week was our first and neither one of us met our goals. I was afraid I would be put off of the idea but today I'm even a bit more motivated to earn my gold stars than before, so I guess it's working. I kind of feel like a little kid trying to earn an allowance but I'm pretty OK with that if it helps me improve. Now, if you'll excuse me I have some gold stars to earn. Bye y'all!
Oh, and here's a random family picture:
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| Saturday Morning anyone? |
The End.
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