We love our children. The greatest act of generosity is showering our children with with attention, soothing, and love. And yet, loving a child doesn’t mean giving into all of their whims. Often, to love them is to bring out the best in them, to teach them to understand what is difficult.
Does your young child repeatedly get back out of bed, leave their room, unable to go to sleep? Does your child have difficulty sharing with a sibling, or often squabble with a sibling or you? Even hit? Do they refuse to eat the healthy food you prepare? Do they refuse to help clean up in a timely manner? Do you find yourself repeatedly giving the same request, or getting into power struggles with a very small person?
I come from a gentle parenting philosophy, mostly allowing children to unfold in their own ways, as they are innately cooperative young beings, and childhood is a time of practicing, exploring, making mistakes, and learning through everything. But, once in a while, I’m confounded and annoyed. Sometimes, children actually need some firm guiding. With the amount of influence TV and other children/families have over them, our soft touch and gentle coaxing may not be enough. Most children need descriptions of your values and expectations and we parents need a healthy system of consequences for not cooperating.
Here’s one of my favorite ideas from parenting expert John Rosemond called “The Ticket Method”:
Here’s a brief summary: List no more than three specific misbehaviors on an index card (e.g. breaking things, refusing to share, repeatedly refusing to cooperate, being mean to the dog). Those are the misbehaviors you are targeting to correct. Post that list on the refrigerator. Stand your child in front of the list and go over the new system, with clarity and good cheer, explaining what happens if they “lose” all of their tickets.
Next, using a magnetic clip, clip a certain number of ticket-shaped pieces of colored construction paper to the refrigerator, above the target behavior list. The child begins every day with, say, five tickets. Every time he/she acts out one of their target behaviors, the parent vocalizes that out loud and walks dramatically to the refrigerator and removes a ticket. Children really don’t like that.
Remember: the first four tickets are “free.” They are the child’s “margin of error” for any given day. But, when the child loses their fifth (last) ticket, they spend the remainder of the day in their room (first reduce the room’s entertainment value) and go to bed an hour early. As the child’s behavior improves, losing fewer and fewer tickets per day, reduce the margin of error gradually, but to no less than two. Or, keep the same number of tickets but add more target behaviors.
Another favorite application of the Ticket Method: When kids are bickering in the backseat of the car. Pull over, hand them each 3 tickets and tell them: “You may not argue or raise your voices for the rest of the car ride. The child who still has a ticket when we arrive at the destination, gets to go to bed at the regular time tonight. The child who has no tickets left will go to bed right after dinner.”
Tip: Things can get worse before they begin to get better. When things get worse, parents often conclude that the strategy isn’t working and the system, whatever it is, promptly collapses. As a result, the child learns how to get her parents’ goat, and the next time they try a systematic approach to the behavior problems, the child tests even more strenuously. And around and around we go. Stick with it.
Tip: Choose a small amount of specific misbehaviors, and only take tickets for those target behaviors. Or things will spin out of control fast.
Tip: Be super clear with yourself and partner about exact consequences before setting this system in motion with your child. Examples: no play date, or no playing outside after school, or going to bed early (my personal favorite), no screen time, etc. Nothing messes things up worse, than parents who triangulate and fight about this stuff in front of them. Avoid that if you can.
We all want our loving and guidance to be enough to turn a child’s behavior around. When it doesn’t, create a healthy system with clear consequences. The Ticket method is better than yelling, nagging, complaining, losing your cool, living in chaos, or dominating and shaming them. I do think the Ticket method should be used sparingly, for those off-track behaviors that may become habits.
“A society’s destiny rests on how is treats its children” ~ Robin Grille
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Laurel Holmes, ABs, LMHC 