Hanging In There

So much has happened in the past couple of months I really don't know where to begin or even that I will share everything that I have been going through... Lets just say that for the first time in my parenting journey I didn't have the answer, know where to get it, or have an easy solution.

With Kindergarten starting in 55 days I figured it was better to solicit help sooner than later... we are on that current step now. Because of all the changes we have also started doing a behavior chart. I don't remember ever needing this as a kid, but on the other hand my mom had a "Tail Blazer" so I pretty much stayed in check, or my mom took away the Nintendo...
Last week I hastily drew a behavior chart. It was kinda fugly (no joke) but I needed something fast and it served its purpose.

This week I wanted to do or get something I could easily reproduce or re-use. So I turned to my silhouette and the trusty pen holder.

Like seriously it is the best thing invented for this machine, ok maybe not best, but I love it! I use a regular cheep pen, screw it in the thing and then change the setting to sketch and let it do it's magic.

So I took the pre-done Chore Chart on the online store, and changed it to fit my needs. I had to add a row so that there would be one for each day... Then I had to find a font that would work for me. Ultimately I created "Laci's Behavior Chart" that has a line for each day of the week, and then columns for the following:
* Morning
* Nap
* Homework
* Cheer (Thursday)
* Dinner
* Bed Time
* Extra



She can earn a star for each square, and then the "extra" column allows us to reward her if she has done REALLY good at something or surprises us by cleaning up herself, you get the idea.

You can see from above that she lost her star for bedtime the first night of this chart, she kept getting out of bed and coming down stairs. For boxes where she misses one we put an X in there so that she knows she missed it. But this is why we have the Extra column, so that potentially she can get all the stars. On a normal week she can get 37 stars, but there is no cheer this week, so she can get 35.

Anyways, so it takes about 11 minutes to sketch the thing out, but I love it, and really I can set the thing to go and then walk away.

Here is what I came up with:



Last week it worked great, she got two out of three rewards. She was able to spend the night at Grammy's and go see Brave in the movie theater with her Aunt Jennifer. She is off to a great start this week, and hopefully she will earn an extra star this week so that she can get all 35 and get back Pouch Juice or a Movie to Watch.

If she gets 26 stars by Friday evening she can spend the night at Grammy's.
If she gets 32 stars by Saturday evening this weeks special treat would be to go for (1) hour to Chuck E Cheese.
If she gets all available 35 stars she can either get back Pouch Juice or a Movie to Watch.



Anyways, for anyone else going through this kind of thing, what are your suggestions for rewards? I want her to want to earn them.....

Being a parent is difficult sometimes, can't wait until this phase is over!

TTFN~
Julie