My daughter can’t seem to remember to bring her lunchbox home from school. It’s not a big problem, but a problem nonetheless. And I can see it growing into a bigger problem-lunchbox today, binder, textbook, projects, SAT testing the next. We’ve nagged, reminded, and yes-even talked angrily to her about this situation, but it still wasn’t on her radar. Finally, we came up with a solution. We threatened to pack her lunch in a Cars lunchbox-the only one left in our pantry. She was agast at the idea. It was awesome. Never before had a consequence made such an impact, and frankly, I was surprised it even mattered to her, but it did. I was so excited to find a bit of currency to use on her-to Love and Logic her with a natural consequence of meaning. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with those “natural consequences” of behavior, but when you do-it’s truly a golden moment.
And, she hasn’t forgotten her lunchbox since.
We have the same ‘consequence’ at our house – only it is an Incredible Hulk lunchbox. Works.like.a.charm. Another one is the ‘folder/planner’ that has to be initialed by a parent each day. Our rule is that you have to bring us the planner and a pen the night before. I don’t sign the morning of – mornings are crazy enought at our house!
unfortunately she comes by that “forgetfulness” gene naturally—thankfully I have a type A husband to keep me on track