Catching Your Kids Doing Good

Hi! I am pregnant! Yikes!

Okay that is out of my system for a moment I am sure.

I have noticed that most often I am catching my kids messing up. Right?! I mean we are teaching and coaching and training all throughout the day of things to change and work on. Hopefully, throughout each day we are also finding opportunities to praise our kids. I would love to thing praising happens more than critiquing...but I'm not so sure.

So we have two tools that we use in our home that have helped with discipline and rewards. They are called the "IF-THEN Chart" and "The Blessing Chart" found at www.doorposts.com. The "IF-THEN Chart" has been awesome on the discipline front to help with the consistency factor. You know how when you are in the throws of coaching/training/discipline it is easy to give in, or forget what that current punishment was going to be. This hangs on our fridge and has served as a great reminder to the behavior that is expected. Now that I think about it, I probably need to get back on the wagon and be more consistent with some of these if I truly want to see change in behavior.

But the reason for today's post is about "The Blessing Chart"...this is catching your kids doing GREAT things! Showing cheerfulness, thankfulness, peacemaking, truthfulness, obedience, submissive to authority, honoring, pleasant words, wise speech, kindness, gentleness, mercy, diligence, giving and sharing....so with each of these, like the if-then chart there is a verse that goes with it and then a space for you to decide what the reward will be. Caroline has gotten this reward a handful of times. I might catch her helping a sibling without me asking. Or maybe she cleans her room all by herself without me asking...etc. She has gotten "blessings" like an ice cream cone w/ daddy, and getting to stay up late and watch one extra show. This goes over like gang busters! What is so fun too is that they don't get a blessing every time they show this action, so it is a surprise. Sometimes Caroline will ask for a blessing chart reward and then that is a fun conversation about not asking for a blessing, but just receiving it when it comes.

I had been aware that sweet Wyatt hadn't gotten ANY blessing chart rewards yet. I wasn't even sure he was aware of them. I feel like most of the time I am working with him on his gentle touch with his baby sister Hope...yikes she is NOT a toddler! Well, one day I witnessed him on his own pushing Hope in the outside swing gently!!! Amazing! He was acting like the big brother we have been talking about. I shared with Jason when he got home and said that I thought we ought to do a blessing chart with him. Soooo, after we did stories, songs, and prayers I got to tell Wyatt that Daddy and I wanted to bless him that night. We had observed him choosing to act kindly and gently to his sister when he was pushing her in the swing and that meant that he was going to get to leave his light on and read books or play with a few toys in his bed for 30 extra minutes. I wish I could have captured his sweet smile creep across his face...or actually know what the wheels turning around in his brain were communicating long term to his heart! This was a huge hit with him.

The verse that is at the top of the blessing chart is this. "But to him who sows righteousness will be a sure reward. Proverbs 11:18" What a GREAT thing to teach our children. Plus it sure is a practical hands on way to honor our kiddos for doing GOOD things instead of always noticing the bad. I even write it down when I see it b/c inevitably I will forget. This has helped also to go back at the end of the day and as we are tucking kids in we can be specific in the words we leave them with at night of good things we noticed throughout the day!

So reader...go catch your kids doing GOOD and bless the heck out of them!

*pic of Wyatt pretending to be Jake from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"