Daycare.com Forum - View Single Post - Do Your Daycare Kids Act Out at Pickup?

Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
My son was very much like that at 3. My daughter was so good about listening and not running off that I just didn't understand why my son didn't "get it" too.....

When we went places both my kids got a reward for listening and behaving.... IF they did. My daughter got a $1 and she'd buy a Little Golden book. My son also had the opportunity to earn a $1 (he would buy a Matchbox car) but usually within 10 minutes of entering a store, he was darting off or touching things etc... and then lose his reward. It got to the point that I don't think he even bothered to try any more.

Then one day I approached the whole "do X and get Y" a different way....Instead of making my son EARN his reward, I gave it to him ahead of time (10 dimes) and explained that every time I had to remind him of the rules or redirect him he had to pay me 1 dime. IF he had any money left at the end of the shopping trip, he could buy something. If he didn't have enough left over, he couldn't bay anything and had to save the remaining dimes for his piggy bank at home.

It worked perfectly!

Basically some kids operate by rewarding and some kids operate by consequence but bottom line was no matter the method of teaching the results were the same; compliance.

So now your role as parent is to figure out your child's currency. Once you have figured that out, you have figured out the answer. Unfortunately it's different for everyone but you can do it.... The great news is those kids that are sometimes the hardest, teach us the most.

Hang in there.... Parenting is tough.

Like just now, I picked him up from preschool and my daughter was with me as well. It’s raining very hard and is already dark here at 5:00pm so I stopped them at the door on our way out, got down on their level to let them know that we need to walk right to our doors and get in. My DD did as she was told. My DS ran up and down the sidewalk with me telling him the car was about to leave. I was finally able to get close to him to carry him to the car while telling him that since he couldn’t walk right to the car like he was told, he had to be carried. He cried and kicked. I made sure he understood before we left the building that he was to walk and he said yes ma’am. My heart hurts right now.