Talking to a wall

[peggyfromwastate]

Well, Experimental Day One went well. I laid out all of his clothes the night before. After he finished breakfast (during which time I announced, "I am telling you one time to finish up and then I'm telling you one time to go get dressed") I prompted him and set the timer for 15 minutes. He needed to be fully dressed with teeth brushed, shoes on and jacket in hand when the buzzer rang or the dogs and I were going to leave without him. and he was! I didn't have to raise my voice ONCE. So, tomorrow will tell if today was a one-off.

J.

Luke HATES it when I set the timer. I use it after I give him 1 reminder. I'll say: Get your shoes on, and if he's still sitting there 20 seconds later zoning out, I say *I am setting the timer, you have 5 minutes to get shoes on and brush teeth and get in the car.* After the first 2 days of this (where he cried and spazzed the whole time and then the timer went off and he lost DS for the day) he pretty much falls in line.

To get the kids to the car I have used the *If you get to the car before I do, you get a reward* deal. They have to be BUCKLED up before I am. The reward is a quarter, but they have to remind me to give them the quarters, and it has to be that same day. I'm not getting a bill at the end of the week for 10 quarters. Since we have to load and unload in the car sometimes 4 times a day, this game helped a lot. The quarters are in little bins in the kitchen that they can see- so they compete with each other to get more quarters. The quarters can be used at the pool snack shack (can be adjusted seasonally of course), and so I never had to PAY for a snack directly at the pool over the summer or at swim meets.



It's frustrating.