Ah, sticker charts!! What would parents do without them?We resorted to this because the Climber would not eat fruit. Which to my mind was unnatural and wrong. Kids should LOVE fruit. Fixit and I both love fruit. But both our children have needed considerable encouragement and coercion to consume it. We think it's a texture thing. Cherub is a better fruit-eater than Climber (he could hardly be worse) but if we removed it from their diets I don't think they'd notice. It's not normal is it? Go on, tell me how much your little darlings love/d fruit. You know you want to. When the child eats fruit the parent feels good. We all know it's true.
So I made him a chart. Every time he ate a portion of fruit, he got a sticker. Acquiring 10 stickers meant he arrived at a treasure chest, which entitled him to a trip to the shops to purchase a smallish toy to the value of $10. I think for all but one treasure chest reward he has chosen Lego. Now there's a surprise.
It was an enormous success at first. In this house, on the whole, new toys and little presents only arrive at birthdays and Christmas and since for him these fall within one month of each other, he was really rather keen to earn stickers, and could be heard requesting fruit. Music to my ears.
And then as these things do, it started to taper off slightly. Which was okay because habits had been formed by then and fruit was consumed without thought of material rewards. But fruit was still fairly low on his list of foods to eat, and also, the sampling of new fruits got us exactly nowhere. Oh sure, he tried them, but none of them caught on. It was strictly apples (sliced; and swallowing the peel has been a fairly recent skill), sultanas and strawberries round here. BUT!! He no longer complains when they are served up and even quite enjoys eating them.
Anyway, I am telling you all this as background, because if I suddenly announced in big, bold, capitals that My Son Bit Into And Ate Nearly a Whole Apple you would wonder what all the fuss was about. But the thing is, it's been sliced apples all the way and last week for the first time Climber Ate the Apple the Way Nature Intended. And that was a big thing for me. So much so that he was rewarded with instant Lego (Cool! Free toy!! was his response). And if that instant Lego happened to be some that I'd bought on special in the early days of the sticker chart and had then seen languish on top of my wardrobe as he eschewed it for New Lego and therefore I really needed an excuse to hand it over, well, he didn't mind that.
Just as a PS. to this tale, the school-holiday squalor in this house must have influenced my decision to buy myself this book.
Fifteen minutes a day to have a clean and sparkly house! And only using bicarb and vinegar as cleaning agents! That just sounds like a great plan.I'm thinking of starting a sticker chart for myself so that I follow through with it!
