With two little kids at home, sometime things get little difficult to handle.
As a mother I had lots of thoughts and questions.
In order to help myself, I started followed a simple yet powerful routine when my elder one was 8 and younger one 3 years old.
Deriving from my corporate experience, I decided to use same motivation technique and performance improvement method that I used for my project teams. With slight modification I adopted it for my kids.
I started a Star Tracker Program for my girls. It was a nice colorful diary where in we used to keep daily record of
1) Good deeds
2) And not so good deeds
They would list all the things they did during the day, we would then categories those and list in separate heading.
If number of good deeds scored more than bad deeds. They would get a Star for that day.
End of the week and month we will check who has got more stars. Both of them tried to do as many good deeds as possible during the day.
Some of the deeds were put in special category like
1) Helping grandparents
2) Taking Care of your siblings
3) Not watching TV but going out to play.
4) Eating two fruits a day
These were awarded more stars.
I added these special categories to highlight importance of these things in our life.
Also there were days when the Not so good deeds score was very high and chances of getting a star was bleak. These special categories would boost their star value on those days.
The objective of this exercise was not to highlight the wrong things but focus on good things. So I always ensured that they get at-least one star a day. The number of stars for a day depended upon how many activities remain on Good side after cancelling against the Not so good deeds.
Later based on my girls feedback we also added a Mother Star tracker, where in we would also list my good or bad deeds of the day and rate me as well.
We followed this daily for almost a year. And helped me a lot in instilling the right values and manners in my children. Sometime they would fill it themselves (especially my elder one , younger one was too small to write) and bring it to me for marking a star. Though my younger one was barely 3 years that time, but she used to list out all good/not good stuff properly.
I am not a trained psychologist, but as a mother I can vouch that this little exercise did wonders to my girls and myself.
It ensured that we talked about good and bad behavior for at-least 15 minutes daily. The 360* feedback (term from my corporate days) that I added post my daughters feedback added a new dimension to the whole thing. It made them realize that everybody (their mother included) has limitations and even grown-ups needs improvements. And there is no shame if someone highlights your wrong doing and asks you to improve. Life is about bringing a positive change in your life.
It also helped them open up a lot, as we discussed both good and bad things with out fear of any reprimanding later.
I would recommend it to all parents. All you need is a nice diary with colorful pages (to begin with choose one cartoon characters or some kiddie design) some star stickers, sketch pens. Plus you need to set aside 15-20 minutes from your busy day for this activity.
Do try it out and let me know how it helped you.
Would be happy to hear your feedback.
Happy parenting and happy learning.
As a mother I had lots of thoughts and questions.
In order to help myself, I started followed a simple yet powerful routine when my elder one was 8 and younger one 3 years old.
Deriving from my corporate experience, I decided to use same motivation technique and performance improvement method that I used for my project teams. With slight modification I adopted it for my kids.
I started a Star Tracker Program for my girls. It was a nice colorful diary where in we used to keep daily record of
1) Good deeds
2) And not so good deeds
They would list all the things they did during the day, we would then categories those and list in separate heading.
If number of good deeds scored more than bad deeds. They would get a Star for that day.
End of the week and month we will check who has got more stars. Both of them tried to do as many good deeds as possible during the day.
Some of the deeds were put in special category like
1) Helping grandparents
2) Taking Care of your siblings
3) Not watching TV but going out to play.
4) Eating two fruits a day
These were awarded more stars.
I added these special categories to highlight importance of these things in our life.
Also there were days when the Not so good deeds score was very high and chances of getting a star was bleak. These special categories would boost their star value on those days.
The objective of this exercise was not to highlight the wrong things but focus on good things. So I always ensured that they get at-least one star a day. The number of stars for a day depended upon how many activities remain on Good side after cancelling against the Not so good deeds.
Later based on my girls feedback we also added a Mother Star tracker, where in we would also list my good or bad deeds of the day and rate me as well.
We followed this daily for almost a year. And helped me a lot in instilling the right values and manners in my children. Sometime they would fill it themselves (especially my elder one , younger one was too small to write) and bring it to me for marking a star. Though my younger one was barely 3 years that time, but she used to list out all good/not good stuff properly.
I am not a trained psychologist, but as a mother I can vouch that this little exercise did wonders to my girls and myself.
It ensured that we talked about good and bad behavior for at-least 15 minutes daily. The 360* feedback (term from my corporate days) that I added post my daughters feedback added a new dimension to the whole thing. It made them realize that everybody (their mother included) has limitations and even grown-ups needs improvements. And there is no shame if someone highlights your wrong doing and asks you to improve. Life is about bringing a positive change in your life.
It also helped them open up a lot, as we discussed both good and bad things with out fear of any reprimanding later.
I would recommend it to all parents. All you need is a nice diary with colorful pages (to begin with choose one cartoon characters or some kiddie design) some star stickers, sketch pens. Plus you need to set aside 15-20 minutes from your busy day for this activity.
Do try it out and let me know how it helped you.
Would be happy to hear your feedback.
Happy parenting and happy learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment