The past few weeks we've been trying out this new strategy on Ethan's bad behaviours. It's not that he's a bad boy, its just sometimes he is being stubborn and frustratingly defiant. And most of the time, he resorts to hitting. He hits when he's being reprimanded, he hits back when he's spanked, he hits when he is excited, and he hits when he's told not to.
We realised that scolding and spanking him don't help, coz it just reinforces to him that it's ok to hit. And we realised that the best way to get him to follow is to give him what he wants. It sounds like we're spoiling him, but we're really not - i think. We're just using it to our advantage.
You see, Ethan loves his letters, numbers, and shapes. Even up to now, he's already 4yrs old, he still chooses letters and numbers toys (or ref magnets even) when we bring him to toy stores. So we thought why not use that?
For every good thing that Ethan does, we award him points in the form of stars (using a stamp). Five if he pees in the toilet, ten if he poops there, 1 if he dances (low score coz he always dances), and 2 if he sings the song that we choose (he earns nothing if he choose the song - coz he'll just sing Gangnam style and London bridge over and over again). Now if he hurts anyone, 5 points will be erased with a trusted old liquid paper. If he reaches 100, we promised to get him the toy that he likes.
It seems effective so far coz he is really watching his points. He doesn't want to loose any and he's striving to earn more. And the past few days he hasn't hit us at all. He's been a complete darling. Whenever he starts being naughty again, we'll just remind him of his points and he'd immediately stop.
Here's his chart right now:
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