Back it up

Hubby and I were discussing why J's behaviour has been so off recently. Some of it is down to anxiety, I know, but anxiety from what? That I don't know. So we were coming up with all sorts of ideas about why he might be a bit more prone to tantrums, arguing, and meltdowns lately. After covering several reasons for maybe, we still weren't any closer to fixing the problem. I got in touch with a service for children, that offers some programs to help with stress and behaviour, but we are on the waiting list for now, and it will be a long wait.

I wondered how I might approach this differently so we can help him a bit in the meantime. I eventually looked back upon what's worked in the past. When J was two, we used sticker charts for everything. He earned rewards for x amount of stickers, and it worked for a lot of things.

I know he's six now, and that seems a bit juvenile (to me at least), so we have changed the approach slightly. Every time he does something after being asked only once, he gets a sticker. His chart will be for each week, so he can see the progress he's making. The stickers don't earn him anything, but instead serve as a visual aid to remind him of his good days.

It's only Day 2 for this chart, but there are already some things that are clear. First, J is excited about the prospect of earning stickers for listening, which tells me that we're on the right track with the visual reinforcement. However, he may be a little too old for it, because whenever I ask him to do something he says, "Okay, I'm ;planning on doing that, so I get a sticker." That's not quite the way it's supposed to work but I feel closer to a solution than I did last week. Perhaps with some tweaking we can come up with something more age appropriate, but I'm gonna stick it out for a week and see how it goes.