Star Jar

N has always had a hard time with transitioning from one activity to another. The hardest transition for him to make is one that involves leaving the house. Ugh!! Getting him to go potty, put on his shoes and coat to get out the door, for school in particular, is grueling. And we have to do that several days a week. It can really slow us down and it's taxing for me. I am trying a new tactic to make this easier. I found a "marbles in a jar" technique online. You get two jars. One jar represents good behaviour, one jar represents bad behavior. The child does something good, he/she gets to put a marble in the good jar. He/she makes a bad choice, he has to remove a marble from the good jar and put it in the bad jar. When the good jar is full, the child is rewarded in whatever way you see fit (a small toy, computer time, Wii time, tv time, a trip to favorite restaurant, etc). I adapted the system to fit our needs. First of all, I am using a plastic container instead of a glass jar. I figure N will likely handle the jar at some point and I don't want him to drop a glass jar and get hurt. So plastic it is for us. And the marbles? I can invision L getting ahold of one and choking on it. He's mostly out of the phase where he puts things in his mouth, but Id' rather not find out if he'd put a marble in his mouth. So I chose foam stars.

This afternoon N and I sat down with our "Star jar" supplies. I explained the system to him. I wanted to get him involved in creating the system, so I had him create a happy face to place on the good jar and a sad face to stick on the bad jar. We talked about specific examples of good behavior and good choices (helping L get his sippy out of the fridge, putting his shoes on when it's time to leave the house without whining, etc). We talked about specific bad choices (taking a toy out of L's hands, pushing L, whining and crying when it's time to leave the house, etc). We also made a list of things N would like to have or do when he fills the jar and earns his rewards. We put the jars on top of the fridge (out of reach of both boys) and we'll see how this goes.