The 1-2-3 Magic Workbook for Christian Parents: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (27 page)

mouth must be something positive
—some type of praise. You might, for

instance, simply praise the child for remembering to show you her work.

After saying something nice about the child’s effort, you may then make

a negative comment, if it’s absolutely necessary. Finally, you conclude

your insightful remarks with something positive again. So the procedure

is Positive-Negative (if necessary)-Positive.

Using the spelling pretest as an example, you might first say some-

thing like, “Gee, you spelled ‘consideration’ correctly. That’s a pretty hard

word. And you also got ‘appearance’ right. That’s another long one! In

fact, there’s only one word on here that I can see you didn’t get. Not bad

at all.” You might stop here and try to kill your daughter with suspense.

150 1-2-3 MAGIC

See if she’s dying to find out what the wrong word is. If she’s not, you

can tell her. End the conversation with another positive comment.

Remember the rule: Every time she brings you some work to check,

the first thing you say must be positive. That type of response will help

bring her back again and again. Kids will never want to bring you any-

thing if you follow your natural human inclinations and shoot from the

hip with criticism.

The Rough Checkout

Our next idea, the Rough Checkout, will also help to make your evenings

a lot more pleasant. The Rough Checkout notion is based on the fact that

8:00 in the evening is no time for scholastic perfection. You have worked

all day, and your child has also put in just about the equivalent of a day

on a full-time job—before she even started her homework!

Unless there is some major indication to the contrary, if your

daughter’s schoolwork is anywhere near 80 percent neat, correct and

thorough, consider calling it a day and consider the job done. Let your

youngster and teacher continue worrying about the assignment

tomorrow if they want to.

Quik Tip…

This advice is doubly true for ADD or LD

The first thing out

children who are already having a tough enough

of your mouth

time with school. You can also adjust your Rough

when your child

shows you her homework

Checkout criteria to your child’s overall achieve-

must be something

ment level. If, for example, your child is general y

positive—even if it’s just

an excellent student (A-B average), you might

that she brought her work

to you. And remember:

consider raising the required neat, correct and

8:00 p.m. is no time for

thorough percentage to 90 or more.

academic perfection!

I learned this advice the hard way. A

mother once came into my office reporting that

her twelve-year-old son was getting more depressed, more irritable and

more distant from everyone in the family. It turned out that homework

was a major problem for this boy every night. The lad would finish his

assignments and bring them to his father for checkout. That was the good

news. The bad news was that if the work was not absolutely perfect, Dad

would tear it all up and make his son start over!

HOMEWORK AND PRACTICING 151

When asked how many times—on the average—the Dad was tearing

up the kid’s homework, the mother said about three times per evening.

No wonder the boy was getting demoralized.

I insisted on seeing the father. Dad blustered into the office insisting

that his son was going to learn to do things right the first time and that

he should try to be the best, etc., etc. I replied that the boy was indeed

learning a lot: He was learning to hate schoolwork, to hate his father, to

hate evenings and to hate himself. I further added that if this nightly rou-

tine was continued, it would produce a high school dropout within four

years. The father—somewhat reluctantly—agreed to stop his ridiculous

and tyrannical homework procedure. That was the end of that and, not

surprisingly, this father also started enjoying his evenings more.

So, if your youngster’s work is by far mostly neat, correct and

complete—but not perfect—consider the PNP procedure. Don’t tell the

child, of course, that his schoolwork is superb, because it’s not. Just say

that the work is good and praise some specific parts of what he has done.

Perfectionist parents who squirm at this suggestion need to stay in touch

with the emotional realities of childhood.

Charting for Homework

A daily charting system can be a godsend when it comes to improving

academic work and decreasing homework hostilities. This is especially

true when charting is combined with the Rough Checkout and Positive-

Negative-Positive methods and when spur-of-the-moment homework

requests are avoided. Here’s an easy arrangement that can be used.

Since it’s usually the older kids who have trouble with homework,

a five-point scale instead of stickers can be used on the chart. Five is the

highest mark and one is the lowest mark. A child can earn one point for

each of the following things:

• Neat:

1 point

• Correct:

1 point

• Thorough:

1 point

• No complaining:

1 point

• Starting on your own at the right

time without being reminded:

1 point

Total possible score:

5 points

152 1-2-3 MAGIC

The kids can get each of the first three points by doing better than

whatever approximate percentage of neatness, correctness and complete-

ness you have required according to your Rough Checkout rules. The

no-complaining point is earned if the youngster doesn’t whine or grouse

about having to do his schoolwork.

The last point is the crucial one. We sometimes cal the fifth point the

Magic Point, because if you can get a child to start his work on his own, in a

timely fashion and without being reminded, the bat le is more than half won!

You can also set up friendly incentive games with

Quik Tip…

this last Magic Point. For example, three days

When charting

in a row of starting on your own at the proper

homework

time earns a bonus point. Or starting more than

performance using our

fifteen minutes early and finishing in a reasonable

5-point system, the fifth

point is the Magic Point.

amount of time earns two bonus points.

A child earns the fifth

Put on your thinking cap and see what other

point for starting his

schemes you can come up with. The possibili-

schoolwork at the right

ties are endless, and playing around with the

time without being

reminded. That’s half the

Magic Point helps accomplish the impossible—

battle!

making homework more fun.

Remember that for many kids with aca-

demic handicaps, you may very well have to use artificial reinforcers to

help motivate the child over the homework hurdle. Your successful young

scholar, for example, might earn a special outing with you, a special meal,

part of his allowance, or time on a new game for posting a certain num-

ber of points during the week. Different rewards may require different

numbers of points. Check back to our list of rewards on pages 122-123.

Also, don’t forget that kitchen timer when dealing with homework.

For instance, it can be used to help break up the work into smaller,

manageable fifteen-to-twenty-minute pieces. A timer also helps keep kids

on task. If your child complains that the timer’s ticking bothers him, use

some kind of sand hourglass or a quiet electric or LCD device.

Practicing

When I was young my parents required that I take music lessons from

time to time. As you can easily imagine, one of my least favorite

HOMEWORK AND PRACTICING 153

memories is having to come in from playing baseball out in the street

in order to practice the piano or clarinet. So here’s a warning to all you

parents from a former kid:
Sophisticated and well-conceived parenting

technology is necessary to get children to practice regularly
.

The tactics for getting kids to practice follow the same logic as

those for homework. Avoid spontaneous requests and consider natural

consequences first if a child is just starting out. Some of these music

teachers are downright scary, and many children would not dare come to

their lesson unprepared. If natural consequences don’t work, try charting

with or without artificial rewards.

The PNP method also applies to practicing. Make sure your comments

start with positive reinforcement, add negative remarks if it’s absolutely

necessary, then conclude with the positive again.

Charting also can help a lot with practicing. For some kids just put-

ting on the chart the number of minutes they practiced can be enough to

keep them going. For others, artificial reinforcers may be necessary. Keep

in mind that points for not complaining and—especially—for starting

on your own without being reminded are very helpful. We’re trying to

reinforce not only musical ability but also attitude.

Now that the homework and practicing are out of the way, it’s time

for bed!

Homework Helpers

1. Routine is CRITICAL!

2. Natural consequences

3. The Positive-Negative-Positive (PNP) Method

4. The Rough Checkout

5. Charting

18

Bedtime and Nighttime Waking