Update on the POO POO...

Thank you for the encouraging words about my post yesterday.... and yes I have had many people say "I can't believe you put that on your blog" or if I was telling them in passing they would say "I would not tell many people"... but remember I am being authentic... and was hoping to get lots of advice... but as I learned from you... not many of you have had a similar story or had any advice... so...

I can report that it has been 2 full days since we have had another occurrence with the touching of the poo... we have resorted to two things in our communication prior to quiet time.

1) If you touch your poo you will get a spanking..
2) If you touch your poo not only will you get a spanking but you will not earn a sticker on your reward chart...

So now lets talk about the reward chart... back in Jan. of this year we were having a hard time getting Pierce to take a quiet time... no he does not have to sleep but he has to be in his room somewhat quiet for at least an hour of the day... every parenting book I have ever read talks about how crucial this is for small children... Well Pierce would fight it so I read the 1-2-3 Magic for Christian parents and they talked about using a reward chart... alot of people and books have problems with reward charts bc they say it teaches your children to covet the reward and not the act of doing what your parents have told you to do... I understand this to a degree but it works... and the only thing we use the reward chart for is for quiet time (and now the poo thingy during QT).

How is works... if Pierce takes a quiet time (no screaming, no crying, and stays in his bed) for the time I shut the door until I open it again... he gets a sticker to put on the reward chart... for every 10 stickers on the chart he will get a reward... this makes it easy for when we are in stores and he wants something I say "That is a great idea... when you earn it we will come back and get it"... or "You have to earn presents... and you need 6 more stickers"... so that is the short and skinny... he can not loose stickers once they have been given (very important)... but he can not earn one for the day or the next day... once he gets 10 stickers and get a reward we draw the reward that he choose (or I did) on that section... as you can see below (his first completed reward chart) he can look back and see all the things that he has earned and boy does he remember everyone... I am not the best artist but he knows which each ones is... and if it is a book he remember an animal book.. not just a book...

There are plenty of days that he does not earn a sticker (for when he cries or whines in bed, or starts throwing toys, etc.) Now we have added if he poo's and touches it... he will not earn a sticker...

So there you have it... a reward chart... and it is something you can make at home.. we used the back of a wrapping paper for this one and drew lines with a marker... I did not spend much time on it bc I was not sure how long it would last and if Pierce would get it... but as you can tell below... he earned 90 stickers.... which is a total of 90 good quiet time days.... which if you assumed there were 2 days for every 10 that were not good quiet time days... it would have taken almost 4 months to complete... so we are sticking to the program and it seems to be working... Pierce now takes a quiet time everyday and has been for quite some time now... and still sleeps 12 hours a night... just love our little sleeper... and thanks to all the books and friends with all the advice... I could not do this without you.