Listening Reward Chart

Baba has never listened, he has always been a child that you have to tell three times at least before he actually listens and does do something.

It is quite possibly one of his worse habits.

Recently his behaviour hasn’t been great and it seems that all Mr L and I do is shout at him and take things away from him. And to be fair neither are helping his behaviour.

It is all a bit miserable really none of us are happy, and we do literally just seem to shout all the time.

And then you hear it thrown back at you and a reality check hits you.

You realise things have to change!

We decided this weekend we were going to change tactic. Try to shout less! (I am not sure we will manage it) And try not to always focus on the bad behaviour focus on the good.

I am totally fed up of saying “don’t do this” “you can’t have that” it is tiring and it is so horrible to just feel like we are only ever saying negative things. No one is enjoying that.

So we decided to flip it, and to focus on the good things instead.

We quickly thought of trying to tackle all the behaviours in one hit but pushed that thought to the side, because basically there wouldn’t be that many behaviours if the boy just listened. So that is what we went with.

It isn’t about Baba just listening when we ask him to get his shoes on, it has also got to the point that he doesn’t listen when we ask him to stop when walking and that is just getting to risky. (Before you think it there is nothing wrong with his ears they have been checked)

So we thought that this was the best thing to focus on.

Then we had to work out how to flip it to make sure we were focusing on the positive and not just on the negative. The one thing that Baba does not like having taken away is his Xbox time, (I hate that he is a child with a natural talent for games, but he is) and he hates it being taken away. So we decided that he starts with no Xbox time. If he listens to what we say first time and does it then he gets five minutes of Xbox time. It is really that simple.

He has to tell us if he doesn’t hear us rather than just ignore the fact that we spoke like he has done in the past so that we know he isn’t being rude he just hasn’t heard everything we asked.

Today I drew him up a chart so that we could record what time he has earnt on the Xbox and could take of the time that he had used. So that we are always on top of it.

He has done well today, and has loved getting his time and getting ready for school was a complete breeze, compared to how it is some mornings. He has concentrated more, you can see him actually listening to what you are saying and if he starts to drift off then he just needs a quick reminder and he is back listening to you properly.

Today has been a much more stress free day. There has been no shouting at Baba, only the dogs today, and it has flowed better. I even managed to make tea it was working that well today!

This is something that I think we will have to keep going for a while to really reinforce the fact that he needs to listen and to make sure that he carries this across all the adults that look after him. But at least we have made a start!