by Maura Clegg

Created on: February 09, 2007   Last Updated: September 22, 2010

Being the mother of three children under the age of six I am typically at my wits end when it comes to making the little people in my house behave like normal human beings. I have called friends, associates and even the liaison at my local Department of Children and Families office. You see I am not a typical parent, rather my husband and I did not come about our parentage in the typical way. We adopted our five year old daughter, and our two sons, who are three years and six months, are foster sons.

So, I guess I am a typical parent as most days I am trying to figure out how I am going to be able to keep hold of my sanity. My biggest problem lately though has been my five year old. She has become the biggest drama queen on the face of the earth. On top of that she has lost the ability to listen to me, or her teacher. In school, the children who continuously show a behavior problem have progress reports sent home daily. Needless to say I have been seeing these lovely pieces of paper for the last several months.

"My friends told me not to listen to the teacher," that is what my darling tells me when I ask her why there was a strike on the chart

I then explain that the most important person in that classroom is the teacher, or whomever the adult is that is speaking to her class at that particular minute. I would chalk it up to ADD, or something like that, but this child is in kindergarten and has received an academic award for her reading skills. She is already reading at a first grade level and moving forward fast.

I think this weekend though I stumbled onto the perfect behavior modification technique. No, I didn't beat or threaten her. I bribed that little girl, and so far this week it is working like a charm. I told her that if she got no strikes at school for this entire week I would take her out and but her an outfit for her Barbie's. She was ecstatic by this prospect and thus far, she has been perfect this week. She has been so perfect that if she remains perfect for the rest of the week she will no longer have to have progress reports sent home on a daily basis. This tells me that this child, who cries if you look at her crooked, or tell her to make her bed, or do anything that she doesn't want to do, is more than capable of being a well behaved child in school.

I wasn't sure how I felt as bribery as a way to get my children to behave, but it has worked with my daughter. Also, about a month back when I was having an impossible time toilet training my three year old I asked for advice from the friend of a sister, and it also involved bribery. And low and behold that worked like a charm as well.

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