It’s no secret that I struggle with Eli and his outbursts towards his sisters.  One day last week when I was in carpool line, I pulled up to find him standing right next to the teacher.  Uh-oh.  She informs me that he punched Grace.  Again.  So they get in the car and he immediately asks me what his consequence will be.  I told him I didn’t know yet.  He asked if it would be the Wii.  I decided no, because we have a deal.  If he gets a green (in our day it would be like not getting your name on the board), he gets to play the Wii.  He held up his end of the deal, so I would hold up mine.  More than anything, I want my kids to know they can trust me.  Then I remembered some wise words I had gotten from Facebook a while back.  A few friends had told me that when one of their kids does something mean to a sibling, they have to do something nice for that sibling.  Aha!!

When we got home, I informed Eli that since he was mean to Grace, he would have to do something nice for her… he would have to clean her room.  “WHAT?!?  But I didn’t even make the mess in her room!!”  Yep.  I oh so calmly explained that this was his consequence for making a bad choice, and that he wouldn’t be allowed to have his Wii time until he followed through with the consequence.  So he went upstairs and proceeded to narrate all of his activities.  “Grace, I’m picking up all of your books now, you have a LOT of books!”  “Grace, where do your stuffed animals go?”  It was wonderful.  Then, when he was done, he asked if he could play the Wii.  I told him he would need to ask Grace if he was indeed done cleaning her room.  She couldn’t believe how clean her room was!  She gushed over it, that it was the cleanest her room had ever been.  Eli was so proud of himself and his hard work.  We then discussed his bad choice and the resulting consequence, as we always do, to make sure he understands exactly what just went down.

So, it worked!  Thank you, friends, for the suggestion!  I love sharing parenting tools, so now I’m passing it on to you.  Enjoy.