If you’re like me and suddenly stuck home with a lot of kids, and you’re all of a sudden a homeschooling family, this is something helpful to remember: Children, and this is psychologically proven, respond better to rewards than to punishments. So if you have problem behaviors that are becoming blatantly clear right now with your kids, think about the ways you want to reward them for the opposing good behavior.
In our home, we put a chart on our wall where we give tickets to kids for things like smiling excessively, complimenting their sibling, quickly dropping a conflict with a sibling, or doing a chore before we ask them to. They receive these tickets for good behaviors, and at the end of the day, they can cash those tickets in for a TV show, time playing a video game, a cookie, or whatever their motivation is. It’s critical to reward good behaviors in order to decrease problem behaviors, and I’ll tell you what, it’s working like magic! I wanted to share that helpful hint with you as a strategy for staying sane while you stay home with your kids.
