The Triumphant Fries

Two days ago Little Bug got a frowny-face note from school saying that he had a hard day keeping his hands to himself and hit and pulled the hair of a number of his friends.

This used to be a daily, hourly, minute by minute occurrence, but he’s come so far.  Now those notes are rare and worth giving him a stern talking to.  Unfortunately, he’s also in the laugh in your face while you are scolding me phase, which is one of the most trying phases….E.V.E.R.  On the day in question, he met me at the door asking for french fries for dinner. Being that he hadn’t behaved, he certainly wasn’t getting French fries, and I told him so.

Freak out ensued. 

So I tried a new tactic.  Little Bug’s cognitive development isn’t totally caught up yet, so believe it or not, we’ve never used a theoretical reward tactic with him.  Until now.  I figure if he can cognitively and abstractly decide he wants French fries for dinner, he can handle having them dangled in front of him in exchange for good behavior.

I told him that if he was nice and didn’t hit is friends the next day, he could have French fries for dinner the next night.  That certainly didn’t placate him in the moment, but all evening long we talked about how he would get French fries if he was nice.  The next morning we talked about it again, and I even asked his teacher to remind him throughout the day.

And what do you know, he had an AWESOME (his teacher’s caps, not mine) day!  She did remind him throughout the day, and he did seem motivated to be nice.  And when I walked in to pick him up he was all over me about those freaking fries. 

So I’m not sure who enjoyed the triumphant fries more, him eating them or me giving them to him.

Of course, this morning when I reminded him to be nice, he immediately asked “French fries?”

I’m going to need to find a less greasy reward system.