do your kids do as they're told when they're told to do it?

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

cos if they do I want to know your secret. probably like most parents I use a mix of the stick and carrot - which in our case usually comprises removing or adding beads to a pot, with beads adding up to treats. (ie the mn pasta jar but with beads) All well and good and it is pretty much guaranteed to get results. But I am fed up of it!!!!! I really cannot get dds to do anything without issuing a threat or a bribe and it's driving me up the wall. I really don;t want to have to count to 10 and take away or add beads for every single little thing. Has anyone found a less specific way of rewarding good behaviour which actually keeps them on their toes all (or at least most) of the time, as opposed to one where they only actually prick their ears up and do as they're told when they hear the word bead/pasta/star/sticker?

peachyclair wouldn't sleeping tablets knock me out, I would worry I wouldnt hear her if she wakes up as she has asthma

Ridiculous targets, far too vague and totally unachievable for ANY child (or adult). And once you've missed a target you're a failure, so you feel bad and....

They need to be much more specific. Raising a hand before talking in class (so she doesn't feel she has to shut up and not ontribute), and being taught appropriate ways of interacting would be far more productive.

I have to go now (bottle of wine and dh waiting- yay), but I think you start a cheltenhamgals support thread and we can check to see how you are doing. Almost went to Cheltenham Uni last year, actually- supposed to be nice.

cheltenhamgal -- she sounds like a very bright girl :) My daughter made herself quite unpopular with one particular teacher at that age because she correct the teachers grammar - IMO if a 6 yr old is correcting the teacher then there's a prob with the teacher. I decided to be on my DD's side - after all I didnt want to teach her to put up and shut up when she knew things were wrong. Now she comes home and says 'you'll never guess what mrs xxx said today' but she knows that pointing everything out to the teacher will not help and probably annoy the teacher ....can't wait till she changes school tbh

thanks for your support you two have a good night and I am going to try and get some sleep

aggie panther, I hadn't tho about the teacher bit, but the days this week when her behaviour had improved were when the teacher was out of school and it was the student teacher

Good Night - hope you sleep - and be proud.. sounds like you've got a little live wire there :)

I think you may have your answer there then :)

apologies to whoever started this thread I think I hijacked it xx

Generally, yes, she does what we ask her to do as she likes "helping", but we do sometimes have to resort to bribes i.e. when she insists in walking around in a shitty nappy and we can't stand the smell - we offer a little bribe for her to allow us to change her there and then. Doesn't have to be a sweetie, it can be "help me tidy your toys and then we can do some painting" or whatever which is kind of not even a bribe as you'd still probably do it with them, but they don't know that. For older kids maybe offering to go to cinema (for say, washing the car, keeping the room tidy and mess free for at least a week etc.). My dd unfortunately couldn't care less for stickers / beads / pasta... It used to work but now she's just too clever for us, and asks for actual stuff or activities.

CHELT - I feel bad for jumping in an posting a critical response to your post - I guess it struck a chord . I hope you get the support you need, all the advice fom the numerous professionals sounds a sensible place to start.

If you are only getting two hours sleep a night it must be difficult for you to function let alon try to figure out workable solutions. Is she being stretched enough at school? Let us all know how you get on.

Ooo I just read the bit about the teacher - I am a teacher (secondary though) and its perfectly conceiveable that there is a personality clash - it does happen which can be difficult to manage. Have you spoken to a senior member of staff and pointed this out. At my school parents ask for students to be moved out of groupings for all sorts of reasons - You ae quite within your rights to suggest this and see if they will for a trial period - though at this age i don't know if a move would upset her? All the best.

It stands to reason that your dd would have issues with authority figures other than you - the one other authority figure in her life has disappeared from her life, why should she trust anyone else? Add to that what seems like a personality clash.
Perhaps rewards rather than punishment/withdrawal of things would work better at home. So, if you have a good week at school, we'll go for a special day out on Saturday, or something, rather than, no telly/treats tonight if you've been bad. She needs to know you are rock solid there for her, don't become the enemy like the teacher is!

My own memories for you - I have very clear memories of the teacher being wrong and knowing i was right, and I still feel about being told off for correcting her! And i wasn't a brave live wire like your dd, I was a little mouse!
FYI it was a spelling thing, we had to bring in homework naming words beginning with E. I'm assuming the teacher was teaching phonetically, my word was "envelope" and it just so happened the teacher pronounced it "onvelope" (i don't know many people who pronounce it like that!!). God it was YEARS ago (i must have been about 6 or 7 too!) but I still feel angry, how sad is that!!

In secondary school about 12 yo there was an occasion my grammar was corrected and I KNEW I was right, but it's too complicated to explain it here!

sorry no help but just to illustrate that if that happens to a bright child, it sounds silly but it does shake the child's trust in the authority figure even in a general sense iykwim. I know it did that for me. And your dd has even more reason not to trust her teacher.

That might all be irrelevent psychobabble but you never know there might be something in it!

On your other thread (go into Special Needs and you should find it there) I said sorry for being harsh in this thread, i don't remember what else i said.

my dd is 2 and started to refuse to brush her teeth, wouldn't even open her mouth. For 3 nights we held her still and brushed them, when finished gave her lots of praise and a sticker (sounds cruel, but it was getting desperate). It worked. Now she brushes her teeth brilliantly herself and even lets us do a quick once over - all for the reward of a sticker. However, she has started to want stickers for other things, like eating her lunch! I just say - no, stickers only for toothbrushing... and she has stopped asking, but she did try it on. We also have one chocolate button for a wee in the potty! (two for a poo but she hasn't managed it yet .

mamatotokf - i remember the refusal to brush teeth time! I can't exactly remember what i did, it was before the sticker chart i think. I think once she refused to even open her mouth that was when i got her her own separate toothbrush so she could "brush" them herself as well, that's maybe how i got her to snap out of it....

cheltenhamgal - thought it might make more sense to copy what i said in the other thread here:-

"hi cheltenhamgal. I don't have any advice i'm afraid as I've no experience of this, but just wanted to say, sorry about giving you a hard time on the other thread when you mentioned this briefly.

I have concerns about my dd starting school (i know, it's a way off yet, she's 2.6) because I've been a SAHM single mum, (though I'm afraid of the opposite to your problem - that she will retreat into her shell. When i started school i stayed under the table for the first couple of terms, teachers thought i should see a child psychiatrist but my parents didn't bother! Perhaps my life would've been very different if they had! ) but i'm making every effort now to make sure she has lots of opportunities to see other children, learn about sharing, gain confidence in bigger settings, etc. All that sort of thing may help your dd too even at this stage. I think starting school is an absolutely horrifying experience for children and it isn't any wonder when any one of them has difficulties!

I also frequently hear about very bright children having behavioural difficulties, apparently this is because their brain works faster than they can handle physically iykwim so they get frustrated and can't keep up with themselves. Perhaps your dd is particularly gifted and this is just adding to her behavioural issues and issues with her dad, etc.

Good luck anyway, hope things are still ok. btw on the other thread for some reason i got the impression your dd was a lot older, in her teens or something! I think it was to do with the mention of her academic abilities (the way you worded it), although i did think the Gold star Award or whatever it was was odd for a teenager! . it's shocking the academic emphasis in schools at such a young age isn't it? "

Only sometimes! but never when I really want them to! I despair at times but TBH I am the type of person that does things that people tell me I cant do just to prove them wrong so I think I know where the kids get it from. I hope that it will even out with age and experience

thanks for all your messages of support and advice I am really finding it tough at the moment as you may have guessed. At home I wouldn't go as far as to say she is an angel but she doesn't play me up like she does the teachers. So I have told her if her behaviour has improved this week at school then we will go to see Chicken little but I do agree that I shouldn't be disciplining her for her behaviour at school. I think that generally the school is restricted in what they can and can't do and I shall just keep my fingers crossed that the app with the paedatrician comes through quickly

bigbaubleeyes - I don't think she would be able to move classes as they have the same teacher for the whole of the school year. I have thought about moving schools but the others are further away and have no after school care(I dont drive)I think I need to see what the paedatrician says when the app comes through, thanks

Hi again .. I think you need to be careful when you say 'if your behaviour improves at school then we'l..' because how do you measure it ? Lets say she tries really hard all week to 'behave' and then has a bad patch on one afternoon - the teacher (who already has a bad view of her) will report this behaviour to you. In the teachers eyes the problem remains - in your daughters eyes she's tried really hard and failed so whats the point...as I said earlier at age 6 rewards/praise/reinforcements need to be pretty instantaneous..little kids like that just don't have a long term view (and a week is long term) ..also the term 'behave' is way way too vague. But I still reckon it should be the teachers reinforcing the behaviour at the time it happens - not you

What might help is to get her to make a chart and she can keep a record - she can put a smiley face/a sunshine or such like for a day which she thinks was good - a frown/raincloud etc for a 'bad day' and a neutral face/sun and cloud for a neutral day - she gets to choose what she thinks should go on each day - the purpose being you get her to talk about whats happening and what she tried etc ...this way you are relying on her reporting her efforts rather than the teachers reports ..you then get chance to support her 'well done for trying X' encourage her ..'what else do you think might have worked' and comfort her 'oh dear that sounds like it went a bit wrong..tell me more' ..just an idea

Hi Cheltenhamgal- hopw are yhings today?

No Never ( in answer to thread title ) they are giving me hell and its teatime and no one ever helps me and they are driving me nuts and.....and....and....(disppears exasperated....)

I'm sorry i have to disagree with one poit made: i do think parents should reinforce discipline carried out at school - the key thing here is that the staff and parents work together to demonstrate a clear and consistent message to child.

A child could be terrible at school then skip home to parents and leave their wrong doings behind and join in family treats. Equally if parents are open and sensible enough which many are and do : contact the school when the child has been poorly behaved and have certain privelages removed (football or art club) its a 2 way street!!!!!!

sorry ds wiggling try to get bak 2c wot you think

I agree that parents hould reinforce discipline at school, but not be the perpetrators of said discipline: being told your child had a detention at lunch would warrant a chat along the lines of 'I am very disappointed', but you shouldn't be told your child has been naughty and then be expected to do the discipline at home, it's too long after the event and I think kids do need a boundary between home and school.
I wouldn't discipline beyind the long chat over an incident at school myslef, unless very severe- one offence = one punishment / discipline whatever in my book.

hi back again, thanks for all your comments, well DD only had one occasion where she interrupted today so as her "behaviour" has improved this week on last week she will get the full hour of "golden time" at school(schools rules)Last week she only had 20mins of "golden time" and it was a nightmare of a week, this week has been so different even though there have been a couple of incidents with her interrupting the teacher to answer a question and having a bit of a spat with one child(she always falls out with this child but then the next minute they are making up)I will try the chart I think as she isn't very good at telling me how her day has been I am relying on a book going back and forward between the teacher and I at the moment. The teacher, headmaster and I agreed that I should go to visit the teacher after work every second Friday which will be tomorrow. Thanks once again for all your support, I don't feel as alone with this now :)