Kids Archives - Life with Gremlins

Behavior Charts for Older Kids

When my 8-year-old started having behavior issues at school, it became clear pretty fast that discipline wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter how much he was grounded or how many privileges he lost. Extra chores made no difference. I was really at a loss. Then I realized I was missing half of the equation. The negative reinforcement was there, but where was the positive? Part of me felt that a kid shouldn’t be rewarded for what he should be doing anyway, but the other part recognized that a kid his age just doesn’t see the reward in behaving at school yet. I couldn’t just let him continue to misbehave.

The next question was how to add positive reinforcement? His issues weren’t academic, he excelled at his work. It was all behavior. He’d get done, get bored, and start acting out. That’s harder to quantify than a simple “A” grade. The answer was in his toddler years—sticker charts. Sort of, I mean actual little star stickers are kind of little-kid for a big second grader, but behavior charts. I had a sit down with his teacher and we made some small printed daily behavior logs. We also agreed that allowing him to do work from the 3^rd grade class (he was in a 2nd-3rd split) might help him from getting bored. The goal was to both challenge him more to keep him busy while rewarding better behavior.

How to make a behavior chart for older kids:

–Choosing behavior chart goals:

The first thing we needed to do was decide what we were rewarding. One option there is to single out the behaviors you want to stop and make the goal for the day on your behavior chart the opposite of that behavior. For example, if you don’t like your kiddo leaving their coat on the floor, “pick up after self” could be a goal. Another way, and the way we chose to go, was with time increments. In this case, morning, lunch, gym/music, recess, afternoon, and bus as he wasn’t having issues at home. You could also do an entire-day system, but for some kids that makes it feel fruitless, because one small mistake ruins the day.

-Explaining goals.

Ideally, the goals above should be discussed with your child. While it’s great to have a preconceived list you feel is necessary, let them weigh in on where they feel they’re struggling. It’s a great opportunity to see where your child might not understand that they’re doing wrong while possible finding causes/solutions to the poor behaviors they do have. It’s also a good time to make clear the expectations of each goal. What counts as success and failure? Your child needs to know the rules of the game to play.

-Choosing behavior chart rewards.

Even more important than allowing your child to help set goals is allowing them to choose the reward. Ask your child what they want to earn and then agree on an appropriate way to earn that. You could go with a set number of days with no missed goals or a certain number of successes. I chose to do 30-days worth of “smileys.” Each timeframe of his school day that he behaved as he should, he earned a smiley face. Anytime he didn’t, he got a frowny face, and a note at the bottom to me stating what went wrong. This also really helped me in knowing how he was doing so that we could communicate about it daily. A single frowny face didn’t blow the day, since for his reward he needed the equivalent of 30-days of smileys or 150. If he only got 3 or 4 in a particular day, it still contributed.

-Adjusting behavior chart goals and rewards.

We did discover that sometimes what he wanted was smaller. Maybe one time he’d want a trip to the movies as a family (which is expensive these days) or a $30 video game, both of those were 30-day rewards, but what if he just wanted some candy or an inexpensive toy? It’s important to make sure that the reward fits the work put in.

You’ll likely also have some adjustments as behaviors disappear or new ones are found. You might find that your time-to-earn-reward span is too long, and your child just loses interest. It’s ok to tweak it until it works. Things don’t have to be set in stone, but avoid giving in so to speak. If your child doesn’t earn a reward, you can’t give it to them anyway for trying. Participation rewards are a bad idea when trying to change behavior with positive reinforcement.

I was impressed—and so was my son’s teacher—with how effective his behavior chart really was. She said it was like he was a different kid. Naturally how well a behavior chart will work for your child will really depend on personality, but it’s worth a shot if nothing else is working.

Leaving Kids Alone in the Car? When is it OK?

It’s hard to properly describe what shopping during dip-netting season in Alaska is like, but it’s sort of like rush-hour traffic for grocery stores. There’s a gazillion people who need a gajillion things. All of them are in a hurry, and none of them have any patience—or the polite manners that go with it—left. As you can imagine, then, taking four children into a store during this time is basically putting your sanity in a blender. I did it anyway. Then I got to my car only to find the cashier had made a mistake. I unloaded my groceries and my kids—ages 9, 7, 5 and 2—and ran back in to have the error fixed.

It was an overcast day, not too cold, not too hot, and I knew it would only take a moment. My receipts were an impressive 11 minutes apart, car and kid loading included, but none the less, I emerged from the store to find the police had been called by a “concerned” shopper who was still there to inform me how bad my parenting skills were. 11 minutes. Luckily, nothing came of this story, because in Alaska, like most states, there is no law designating what age a child needs to be to be left unattended in a car. It does, however, bring up an important question, when is it OK to leave your kids in the car alone?

What does the law say?

The law on this matter varies greatly from state to state. Some have no laws at all like Alaska. Those that do specify a minimum age kids can be left alone in the car in law range from age 6 to 16! Many specify that conditions must be present that pose a risk to the child such as extreme weather for this to apply. The age of appropriate supervision for kids under the age requirement also ranges quite a bit from 9 to 14.

The most common age given, just for rough idea sake, is age 6 or supervised by someone over the age of 12.

You can check the law in your state here.

What if there’s no law in your state, when can you leave a kid alone in the car?

Your child’s maturity level should be your first consideration.

Can your child unbuckle on their own? Can they communicate their needs in such a way anyone can understand if help is needed? If your child was sick, could he/she recognize this? When left unsupervised at home (like when you’re in the bathroom) how does your child behave?

For many, this list would exclude infants and toddler entirely, and many preschoolers as well, making around age 6 actually a solid recommendation. As far as older kids keeping an eye on younger, that again plays into maturity. Say you have an 8 year old who has absolutely no self-control and likes to cause trouble—probably not a good candidate to be left alone in the car, but if you have a 5 year old who speaks clearly and is generally well-behaved when left unattended, a few minutes would likely be fine.

What are the outside factors?

Second consideration, how long? How far away will you be? Can you see your kids from a window inside?
If you’re out of sight and ear shout, the shorter the duration the better. In general, for kids about 6 to 10, anything over 15 minutes isn’t recommended. If you can see your child, age isn’t as important. As long as the car is at a safe temperature and your child’s needs are met (fed, dry, etc.), you’re good.

What’s the weather like?

This should be a no brainer I suppose, but if it’s very hot, very cold, or weather conditions may scare a child (storms), your child shouldn’t be left unattended, no matter the age. Even in states where there is no age law, parents have been charged with endangerment for doing so—and rightly so. On average 37 children die of heat stroke after being left in cars each year. 97 percent of those deaths are in kids under 5 (another mark for around age 6 there.)

Summing it up, how old does a kid need to be to be left alone in the car?

Age 6 is a rough guild line, but your child’s maturity level should be considered.

Kids Are Not A Disability

As challenging as being a parent can be, your kids are not a disability. They aren’t an excuse. A lot of parents are taking this whole I-have-kids card a bit too often.

Yes, my house is a mess because my kids mess it up, but I am also a piss-poor housekeeper, and I own up to it. There are things higher on my priority list than folding 15 loads of laundry—like making a mess with my kids. Yes, I dress like a bag lady, never do my hair, and don’t wear makeup. My kids do cut into the time I have to do all of the above (I haven’t peed alone seen 2008) but I am also comfortable in those baggy shirts and yoga pants, I never did my hair before I had kids, and I think makeup is a vicious cycle of goop that masks true beauty.

Yes, I have not lost all the baby weight, but it’s not because my kids don’t give me time to work out (and they don’t). It’s because my idea of a healthy breakfast is strawberries with great globs of 200-calorie-per-teaspoon Nutella on them. Yes, I have no social life and a lively Facebook thread is the closest I get to a party, but that’s because I have crippling social anxiety, not because I can only find a sitter once in a blue moon.

My point is that we keep trying to teach our children accountability, and then we won’t take it ourselves. We’ve done so, so often, that we’ve created an illusion. New parents are actually under the impression that if they have children they can’t have a clean house, keep up the appearance they preferred before kids, lose the weight, have a social life, go to college, have a career, or any other thing that strikes their fancy to do—because they have kids, time-sucking, life-ruining kids, and it is bull shit. No excuses there, it just is a huge, heaping pile of bull shit.

Kids are not a disability. Kids are like ankle weights on an early morning run, but they’re also the sun rise you see on the way, and the satisfaction you get when you’re done. They’re the challenge of a from-scratch cake, but they are also the flavor. Having kids is setting the game to hardcore and saying, “challenge accepted, bitches.” They are the perks won from succeeding.

All analogies aside, I’m saying, yes, kids are a challenge. Yes, they make things harder, but they aren’t the end of your life. Nobody said life was easy. Every time you blame a failure on your children or use them as an excuse, you’re not only setting up an inaccurate perception, your insulting your kids and letting yourself down, because that perception we’ve created doesn’t just live in others, it lives in us. It creates this shadow of doubt that stops us from leaping when we want to, makes us believe that we can’t when we can.

There was a time when I did blame things like my inability to lose weight on my kids. A time I woke up and said, yep, no time to work-out, better buy bigger pants, and that was the same bullshit, because even eating Nutella by the spoonful I have been able to lose weight, I just had to work hard to do it. I had to defeat my own excuses, take some fucking accountability and do it, but it would have been so much easier if I hadn’t convinced myself I couldn’t do it before I started because I didn’t have time, because I had kids. So, I’m telling you all now, new parents or old, expecting or not-planning-to-because of this same bullshit perception, it isn’t true. Kids are not a disability.