On Fight Club

Isn't the first rule of Fight Club (or one of them) that nobody talks about fight club?  My girls clearly didn't hear that rule.  I can't even begin to count how many times in a day I hear, "MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!  She hit me!!!  She kicked me!!!!  She threw that toy at my head!!!"  Ai-yi-yi!  I am going to lose my mind, which is scary since there isn't much of it left after three kids!

These might be staged.  You couldn't tell, could you?  Their faces crack me up!

This is how I want them to look at all times.

I don't know if it's summer boredom or if they are still adjusting to seeing each other all day every day after a year at school.  They were getting along great during the school year, but I'm convinced it's because their time together was so limited.  You guys, they are 5 and 3.  What on earth will 15 and 13 look like?

I am also woman enough to admit that there are days when I want to punch them each in the face.  Ok, not really, but spanking them all day sure sounds good!  Days when I haven't had much sleep, Logan is cranky from teething, and my patience level is basically non-existent.  I have to really step back and take a deep breath so that I don't spend all day yelling and punishing them.  That's my immediate first response when they start in with the hitting at 7:30 in the morning.  

I spent about a week trying the punishment thing:  taking away favorite toys, revoking TV privileges, separating them for hours on end, yelling, and yes, spanking.  It just kept getting worse.  And we all kept getting more and more cranky.  Luckily, my mom reminded me about our reward jar.

I first started this when Hannah turned 3 and decided that Camden was her own personal punching bag.  My poor little Camden was only around one and half and I would hear that poor baby crying every 30 minutes or so.  If I wasn't there to witness, I would ask Hannah why she was crying.  She would look me in the eye and with no remorse say, "I hit her."  At least she was honest!  

At the end of my rope, I went the opposite direction of the negativity.  I can't remember who came up with this idea.  It was probably my mom.  She has some of the best ideas!  I headed out to Target, stocked up on dollar section toys and goodies, filled a bucket with prizes, and bought two jars and a bag of sparkly pom-poms.

The new system required me to watch Hannah like a hawk every second of the day until she got the hang of the idea.  Any time I saw her doing something I liked (playing nicely with Camden, doing things the first time she was asked, taking initiative to help, and following other rules), she would get to add pom-poms to her jar.  I would always switch up the number of pom-poms she got to add and would have her count them out as she put them in her jar (see?  It's educational, too).  When the jar was full, she got to pick a prize.

Pom-pom system.  We fill the white one for a prize.

Bucket of fun

She went three days without laying a hand on Camden when we started this the first time.  She got a LOT of prizes.  It helped change the undesirable behavior.  We are currently doing it again in this house.  It's helping!!!  It's not nearly as successful as it was the first time, but both girls are really doing their best to behave in a way that makes me stand up, notice, and praise them.  I still only have one jar.  I need to get a second with different colored pom-poms so each girl has their own jar to work toward filling.  Have you ever been to a store with three kids ages 5 and under?  That's why we don't have a second jar yet.

Hitting and being aggressive is always a fail (mainly because it makes me crazy).  Reward jars have proven to be a huge win in our house!  I've even heard them complimenting each other!  Say, what?!?