Monday, November 17, 2008

Proper Motivation

A good parenting skill figuring out what motivates your child then using it to your advantage. Calling broccoli "green trees" motivated Eli to eat them. Promising a glow stick motivated Eli to be good when he was getting pictures taken.  

So my dilemma was how to motivate him to clean up the plethora of toys and shoes that had collected in the front room?  Music usually works for Eli but I found something better! If Eli picks up or does any other job we assign him he GETS to wash the dishes.  It's so awesome 
because he loves to do the dishes and he does a good job too.  I love it.

9 comments:

  1. A five year old who washes dishes? Unheard of!

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  2. When you think about it, washing the dishes is kind of like a big bubble bath!

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  3. How do you produce such a great kid? Could you please tell me your secret? I can't even get Emma to carry in her backpack from preschool!

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  4. To hell with child-labor laws!! :)

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  5. Very good idea. I'll have to try that one. Thanks for the heads up on the word verifiying. Took that off.

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  6. That is amazing! I will be keeping things like this in mind for the future!

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  7. Well, washing the dishes as a reward will work until he figures out it's work. It all based on the "get to/have to" theory. I figure you probably can get about 3 more dish washing episodes out of him and then he's out of there.

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  8. It reminds me of how fun it was to mow the lawn the first couple of times Dad let me and then it sucked after that.

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