Bribery at its best

Those of you close to me, and even not so close, have probably heard me go on about our struggles with a stubborn, independent little kid. Historically, transition times have been the most difficult.

Morning times are tough, especially getting out of the house in a timely fashion. Also picking him up from school in the afternoon is difficult, sometimes it's hard to pry him away, especially if his friends are still there or if he's engrossed in some fun activity. More times than not, I was wrestling him into the carseat and he would be flailing and curisng at me, "Poopy guy, caca head!"

My mom watches Lucas on Wednesdays. This past week, she came up with a solution. It's something that I've been meaning to try, but was not sure how to implement. She said she saw it on one of those nanny shows. So far, it's worked like a charm. And when Lucas fills up the side of the smiley faces (he draws in his own faces now), he will put his hand into the "surprise sack" and pull out a surprise. Surprises include a mini flashlight, keychains (which I found around the house), notepads, little chocolates, a mini kaleidoscope, plastic lizards and the like. According to my estimates, he will probably get a surprise about once a week.

Lucas has been supermotivated to put in the smiley faces. So getting him dressed in the morning, into his carseat, or curbing his whining, has been so much easier. An "X" in the "Bad" column is equivalent to a time-out, and even the mention of an upcoming X will usually make him come around.

Stay tuned to see if it continues to work.