Trying to keep my sanity in a house full of manly ball-scratching, burping, farting, and raised toilet seats.
Trying to keep my sanity in a house full of manly ball-scratching, burping, farting, and raised toilet seats. 
When my youngest son turned into a maniacal toddler who would bite, pull hair, scream and rage all over the house, I knew I was in for trouble if I didn’t look for some disciplinary alternatives, particularly since I adamantly refused to spank my children (never have, never will and, as a former child of corporal punishment, I do not see the logic in it). So I turned to “positive reinforcement”; it was a practice I was already familiar with having worked with my younger brother who had a learning disability and ADHD, but I wasn’t very conscious of it. I bought one book, read the gist of it and was on my way to creating special star charts and changing my vocabulary. I also designated a spot in the house with a”thinking” couch (rather than a “time-out” spot) where my boys could reflect on their actions. I even used relaxing methods such as breathing exercises, to teach my youngest how to calm down through focused breathing.
I know it probably sounds crazy and hippy-like to some of you, but hey, it worked, and to this day, when his anger starts to get the best of him, I tell him to breath. And he breathes. And I’m sure you have to do the same thing every now and then….bet it doesn’t sound too crazy anymore, huh?
Positive reinforcement is basically “catching” your child doing something you want them to do and rewarding it. The child gets attention and reward as positive reinforcement for doing the 
right thing emphasizing that they should repeat that particular behavior. If you have ever trained a dog, this will sound familiar to you. The problem with all of this though, that I have noticed as an educator in the preschool classroom, elementary and even college classrooms, is that parents have taken this method and over indulged their children in it and, in effect, have created praise junkies who are incapable of doing anything without some sort of recognition (for example, today if you play a sport on a team, it doesn’t matter if you sucked or not, you still get a fricken trophy…so pick all the grass you want hunny, you’ll still be a winner!) I see this in my college students when they question how I could have possibly given them a particular grade….the notion of EARNING the grade has never crossed their mind.
In any case, I have tried my best, as I stumble through parenthood, to create a balance with my boys teaching them to work hard and earn their way while still providing them with praise and recognition when they make smart choices or have great accomplishments. Now, if I tell them to clean the bathroom and they do a half-assed job, they’re not getting any praise for trying! In my book, if you do a job half-assed you might as well not have done it at all. On that note, I am not one of those parents who gives allowances for house work. The way I see it, nobody pays me to do it, so I’m not going to pay my kids for house chores. The reality is that we live in this house together, we make the mess together, therefore we clean it up together, damnit! 
To be fair though, my kids will earn money for jobs like cutting the grass, or cleaning the car because these are services that I will pay to have done by an “expert”.
Some of the bracelets my son makes
And yes, I am aware that some of you who do give allowances will argue that it teaches kids how to manage their money (even if you’re not exactly teaching them anything about receiving money without earning it), which is very important, but rest assured my children know how to manage money. Not only do they get paid to do jobs like cleaning cars, they receive monetary gifts from their grandparents, and my 15 year old started his own business a year ago when he began selling leather bracelets that he makes himself.
Lastly, there’s one other thing I will pay my kids for:
Yup, that’s right. Because, and hear me out here, while they should want to get good grades for their own personal satisfaction and the opportunities that good grades will afford them in the future, I also know that children in general are not fully capable of seeing or understanding the long term consequences their effort in school has (and my children have been exposed to the University with me since they were babies). Additionally, I have always taught my kids, as I do my college students, that school is their J.O.B. Just like a job, you have to be there on time, or there are consequences, just like a job if you smart mouth your boss/teacher, there are consequences, and just like a job, the better you do, the more recognition you receive and that recognition should be rewarded. In a job it would be a promotion, right?
Ok, so I give them money for their grades, albeit a very modest amount and an amount that is based on incentive; the better you do the more money you make. When they were in 
elementary school, for every A on their report card, they would earn $2 and for every B, $1. Straight A’s (Principal’s Honor Roll) got them a whopping $10. Anything lower did not qualify for monetary compensation. This worked rather well throughout elementary school and as they moved into middle school and now high school, taking honors and/or gifted classes, I upped the ante and told them if they got all A’s and B’s (honor roll) they would earn $25 and straight A’s would get them $50. Understandably, it becomes more difficult to as you progress through the grades, but I was posing it as a challenge for them to push and excel.
Throughout the three years that my eldest was in Middle School and even into his Freshman year (with the exception of the perhaps two or three grading periods in early middle school) he has brought home at least one C on his report card every grading period. My youngest started Middle School last year, and again with the exception of one grading period managed to bring home at least one C every other grading period.
So what’s the problem?? In my mind, I’m giving you the opportunity to make some buku bucks!! And you still don’t want to work hard for it?? I was left dazed and confused realizing that the damn positive reinforcement WAS NOT WORKING!! So where did that leave me??
I’ll tell you where! It left me with THREATS! If I threaten to fire you, then you’re most likely going to step it up, especially if you can’t afford to lose your job. So I threatened them! At the beginning of the school year I told them that if they brought home anything less than a “B” they would be grounded for the following grading period. The entire 9 weeks! Throughout the first month, on several occasions, I reminded them of this threat in an attempt to ensure it hadn’t slipped their mind, because honestly, grounding my kids was not something I was looking forward to; the reality is grounding kids is A LOT OF WORK! It means being consistent and not being manipulated by “I love you’s” and “How was your day mommy?”
Suffice it to say, the grading period ended on Friday, October 28th and, well, I think the evidence speaks for itself!!
High Schooler's Grades
Middle Schooler's Grades
Peace Out!!
-Natasha Olivera
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My journey into motherhood began when I was 17 years old. Today, I am the mother of two teen boys, 15 and 13, and I am one of the only moms "blogging" about raising teen boys. On this blog, which I like to call a "blogory", I share my candid, poignant, sometimes humorous, but always real, short stories about my stumbles through parenthood as a young mother raising two teen boys while coping with living in a house full of testosterone. My parenting philosophy revolves around honest, no holds barred communication, where no topic is off limits, mixed with an enormous sense of humor. Peace Out! -Natasha Olivera
© 2010-2012 2010 Me, My Guys, & My Stumbles Through Parenthood All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright
I never had it as easy as your kids. My dad was Haitian and as they do it on the islands, if you did something wrong you got beat. You hear “Oh-oh!, Go get me the belt”. Then you had the walk of shame to your dads bedroom with tears and boogers dripping from your face. Followed by walk back to hand him the nice big leather belt and turn around. Didn’t even matter if you had clothes on. Shit hurt like no other.
My parents tried positive reinforcement once… in elementary school. They had a basket of toys on top of the fridge, and whenever we did something good like get good grades, or do good on a quiz, we would get a toy.
Yeah well that didn’t work. I didn’t care about the toys. And I would just sneak on top of the fridge and take one when they weren’t looking. But I made sure to never actually do bad in school, because I was scared shitless of my dads belt.
I don’t remember how, but one good thing that came from it was that I became responsible for my actions. I made sure to watch myself, and watch my grades. And even though I wasn’t getting Straight A’s… I wasn’t failing.
My parents tried the whole money incentive thing in Middle school. But that didn’t work. I got maybe 5$ every report card because of my grades while my little brother got like 10. But money wasn’t a problem. I knew how to fix things, and sell them, scalp tickets, and play the market.
This continued on through high school. Until I started Applying for colleges…
One thing I was defiantly not prepared for. I had spent all my time in school just not doing bad, I had never actually tried to do good. So when I saw my transcript I was a bit disappointed in myself. And even though I didn’t get hit by the belt anymore, I still didn’t want to disappoint my dad. So I started trying a little, and brought my GPA up.
tl:dr You should beat your kids because it works. Negative reinforcement has worked and always will work better than positive reinforcement.
Show kids that they have to do good in school to get into a good college instead of paying them for grades.
Beat them when they do something wrong instead of giving them something for doing something right.
I agree with both approaches towards your children’s grades. My parents rewarded me or punished me for my grades depending on the need. I remember that my stepsister was offered more money than I for A’s and B’s. At first, I thought it unfair, but it reality, she did need the extra motivation. I, on the other hand, didn’t need to get rewarded as much to produce A’s and B’s. Later in high school, my parents threatened punishment as my grades began to fall. I think that utilizing these techniques is a great idea to help kids perform better in school. It is very important to make sure that the kids understand that rewards are not always to be expected. Otherwise, they may develop the wrong idea and become “praise junkies” as you put it.
I just finished watching a documentary called Freakonomics which basically breaks down complex, economic theories into understandable, everyday terms. For example, they broke down the idea of incentives into a situation very similar to yours. In fact, the section was explicitly titled “Can a 9th Grader be Bribed to Succeed?”! lol ☺
Economists from the University of Chicago studied a group of 900 high school freshmen to see if their grades would improve when given a monetary incentive. If students earned all passing grades for each report card, then they would get $50 as well as an entry for the lottery. The lottery’s grand prize was a whopping $500 (FIVE hundred dollars!) AND a ride home in a stretch Hummer limo! (That’s a pretty gosh darn sweet deal if you ask me!!) At the end of the school year, economists found there was a 7% increase in the class’s passing rate as well as an average 30% increase in individual’s GPA. In other words, 65 more students passed and the average individual increase in GPA was one letter grade.
Sooooo…that means a 9th grader can be bribed to succeed, right?
Nope! The results showed that the majority of students (the other 70%) either maintained or lowered their GPA. But wait-wait- wait: Since kids usually don’t understand the long-term benefits of earning good grades, shouldn’t an immediate reward, like money, be sufficient motivation? As it turns out, most kids valued their social life and popularity more than money. After all, what good is extra money if you don’t have friends to enjoy it with? This is probably why the possibility of being grounded for a whole 9 weeks really made your kids step up to the plate lol! ☺
The documentary also mentioned the industry of parenting (baby name websites, “professional baby namers”, “mommy & me” classes, parenting books, etc.). One of the points they made is that even though parenting books bring in big bucks, they are not the solution to parental crises. What makes a good parent is not a handbook, but rather the action of caring so much as to buy the book. Just some food for thought ☺
Congrats for the good grades and keep up the threatening! xD
-Gala
P.S. Here are some short clips of the documentary I mentioned:
“Can a 9th Grader be Bribed to Succeed?”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbonVv-bI0&feature=related
“Incentives and Potty Training”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2hhIWbz0Ns&feature=related
“What Really Makes a Good Parent?”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDlSWcx–Pk
My parents used the same method that you did. When I was a child they used positive reinforcement and then as I got older they started using threats. I remember in kindergarten when my first report card came out I had no clue what it was. My mom picked me up from school and I already had the report card in my hand because my teacher had been giving it to us on the way out of the classroom. So she took the envelope from me and was in a bit of a hurry to open it up. Once she realized that I got almost straight A’s she got so happy and gave me a huge hug and kept on saying how proud she was of me. When my dad found out the good news he was just as happy. So, to reward my good grades they took me to “toy’s r us” and let me pick out one barbie doll that I really wanted. They told me that everytime I brought a good report card home they would take me to “toy’s r us” to get me a new barbie doll. Let’s just say that I accumulated quite a collection of barbie dolls lol.
However, there were many more grading periods that I spent free of punishment.
Once I grew out of the barbie phase they would get me something else like a game for my GameBoy or money. Then as time went by I wouldn’t get anything for my good grades. Just a “Good job Jessi!” or “That’s my girl!” and maybe a high five. By the end of middle school to the beginning of highschool my grades started slipping. I started getting C’s on my report card and my parents weren’t too fond of it. They stated a new rule: “If you receive even one C on your report card you will be grounded for the entire grading period and will continue to be grounded until you bring home a report card without a grade lower than a B.” (Sound familiar Natasha? ;p) But my parents did have one condition to that rule. If I got a C in a class I would also need a 1 in effort and an A in conduct in order for my parents to wave the punishment. They believed that they could not punish me if I had given my best effort and behaved and listened in class. Yes there were a couple grading periods that I spent being grounded. But I found out how to get away with things every know and then while I was punished
As I got older I no longer wanted to get good grades to please my parents, or to be rewarded, or to avoid punishment. I wanted to get good grades for myself. Good grades meant that I would go to a nice university for free to become a Nurse. And as I predicted, my good grades got me into Florida International University for FREE. Parents just need to encourage their children, set an example for them, and adjust their parenting techniques as their kids get older.
Congrats on your boys Natasha! They are very bright young men with a lot of potential and success ahead of them
Jessi
BTW your son makes some pretty nice leather bracelets! I think your students would be interested in purchasing some of these bracelets
When I was growing up, my parents punished me with the old fashioned spanking.However, I was never “beat”. A hard enough slap on the butt doesn’t seem wrong to me, and it hurt enough to make sure I would think twice about doing whatever I got punished for again. Now that I think back on it, I was hardly ever spanked, but the times it occured the most was when my parents divoreced. I was seven years old, confused as to what was happening with my family, and I was acting out almost everyday. Lol, I remember a time when back then when I spent the weekend with my Dad, and his new girlfriend was spending the night as well. I hated her, and I went through her overnight bag, found her toothbrush, and scrubbed the inside of her toilet with it.
Although I never got caught for that, I was spanked for back talking, hitting, and being disrespectul to my parents on a seemingly weekly basis. I won’t even attempt to justify my actions by claiming “I was going through a rough time” or something like that. I know I was a little brat, and I’m not afraid to say it. 
In the end, I think I turned out okay, and people have told me I’m quite pleasant to be around. As far as I know, we never had time-outs in my household. When I asked my parents why that was, they said they never could understand why a punished child was going to get some time to relax in a corner. Now while their mentality may differ from others, I personally believe time-outs can be effective if the child understands what they are being punished for. Or in your case, Natasha, your “thinking-couch” method turned out to be effective, because you most likely told you sons what they were doing wrong, and why they needed to reflect on their actions.
When it came to grades, I always willed myself to excel, because I knew that meant monetary awards from my parents, and praise. However, throughout middle school and high school, my outlook changed and I wanted to get good grades to be able to get into the college i wanted. I was goal oriented from 6th grade, and my parents saw that. I think this was also the same time when the spanknings stopped, and disciplinary action was now only scoldings. You may probably find this shocking, but I was never “grounded”. I never got priviledges or my cell phone taken from me (I guess my parents have a pretty backwards way of disciplining lol).
Anyway, I feel the most appropriate way of discipline is to explain why to your child why they are being punished. If they do not understand why they are in trouble, and form of punishment, whether it be spankings or time-outs, will be ineffective. I also believe children need to be praised regularly. This shows that their parents love them, and that they are proud of them.
But when all else fails, feel free to bring on the threatening.
-Ayana
I guess I was raised just as you have raised your children! My parents used to give my sister an I $10 for every “A” that we brought home from elementary through middle school. They stopped giving us the reward when we got into high school because we had learned that with a little time and dedication we would get a different reward: getting into college. When I was young my parents did spank me, however, they only did whenever we did something EXTREMELY bad.
I’ve always had a problem with school and studying. But the positive reinforcement was actually handy most times. Being raised this way was very beneficial to me and I think it was actually better than negative reinforcement.
I really enjoy your outlook on a lot of issues. But I too, remember when i brought home C’s. OMG, i though it was going to be HELL. But all they did was sit down with me and talk to me about what was going on. They sat with me and helped me with homework and then my grades shot up. I just needed a little bit of TLC.
The whole business thing with your son is also awesome, it teaches him responsibility and how to make a little mula! haha. I’ll buy one!
Great blog once again, Natasha!
Nice post, I’ve added to my g+ page on teenage boydom. Personally I have found paying for housework has much improved the level of effort he makes with housework. I hope in time the payments for schoolwork will pay off and get great results as yours have.