How Mario Party improved my life

When I was a math major, a professor came into class one day and started his lecture by explaining why his math proofs worked out so well and looked easy:  He got to choose the proofs.

It is much the same with my blog posts.  Our children may come across as perfect and humorous because I get to choose which stories I tell.  As with most people, I'm not super keen on airing my parenting failures or when my children do not act in a way that I'm particularly proud of.  We, just like everyone else who has ever been responsible for a child, have struggled with discipline tactics ever since we realized we needed to start using them.  We have had varying degrees of success.  It doesn't help that every child is unique and reacts differently in every situation.  Things that worked on Dom failed miserably with Will.  And I have no solution, yet, for Molly.  I'm just going to survive this year (hopefully without too much backward progression), and hope for a better third year.

But, I do want to share what has been working lately for William.  It had been slowly dawning on us that Will was becoming more and more defiant in his refusal to obey us.  The biggest test was at the dinner table, but he was also giving us more back talk when we asked him to do things, as well as completely ignoring us when we would tell him it was time to leave.  This last one is what finally broke the proverbial camel's back.  With three kids, it is hard enough getting out of the house.  It is even harder knowing you will have a fight every time you want to leave to go home.  In order to maintain my sanity, I knew I needed to have at least 2 kids obeying me, so that I could just pick up the third (Molly) when it was time to leave an activity.  There was one morning at the gym where I couldn't get any of them to leave...and I lost it.  I yelled,  I threatened, and I knew that things had to change.

When I finally got them home, I looked at Will and told him I was writing his name on a piece of paper (Dom has learned to recognize when it is imperative to obey me, thus had avoided the dread name on paper punishment).  This oddly got his attention and I saw a look of fear in his eyes.  He wanted to know what was going to happen when his name was written.  I said that every time he disobeyed or talked back, I was going to give him a check mark.  If he got 5 check marks, he would lose a toy.   This punishment is a little tricky as all of the toys in the house are communal, meaning that Dom might get punished as much as Will, but that is where we left it that afternoon.

After a cooling off period and after I explained to Eric "the system", Will and I started to tweak it. (Sorry, Eric)  Will requested that instead of a check mark, he would receive an 'X' every time he disobeyed.  Then I suggested that if he did something over and above expectations of good behavior (picking up before being told, helping with Molly, sharing without being asked...and several other ideas we talked about together), he could get a check mark which would cancel out an X.  However, if he just obeyed me, than the result was neutral.  We talked over scenarios for about an hour.  I would give him hypothetical situations and he would tell me whether he would get an X, a check mark, or nothing.  He went on to explain when he would get double check marks, or when he might get double X's (in his words, this would result in his becoming a dragon and generally happened if he hit Dom or Molly...that would be really, really, really bad).  In this conversation, William took total ownership of his new discipline plan and I firmly believe that is why this plan has been so successful.  We also agreed that if he got a net 10 check marks in a week, he could get a little prize.  The prize bag has several Mario Brothers figurines as well as a few odds and ends one can pick up at the Dollar Tree (I love that store!).  Dom is also participating in the system out of fairness and there are always things to improve upon.  Molly is a wonderful example of what not to do.

The first week, I was so excited about how everything was working.  All I had to say was "X" and Will immediately stopped the bad behavior and replaced it with good behavior.  As I told a friend, when I no longer felt like I had to fight with him to get him to do anything, I started to enjoy being around all of my kids more.  I did more things with them in the afternoon (tea party, board games, painting), rather than put on the tv and attempt to avoid them.  When we went on vacation, we regressed a little bit, but it only took a couple of days (and the loss of a toy) to get back into the routine again.  I have two sheets of paper where they can check on their progress.  And in the last week, I only gave out a few X's total.  And they don't get a lot of checks, but there is always a small smile of pride when they get one.   And everyone is enjoying not dealing with an angry mother.

I can't take credit for the uniqueness of this system.  I've seen similar ones before.  And I realized shortly after we devised it that it is really based on Will's current favorite video game:  Mario Party, where you go around the board collecting Mini Stars or losing them when you get Mini Ztars. I am sure this plays no small part in Will's willing and enthusiastic participation.

An added bonus is that Molly has learned the names of Mario and Luigi.  She doesn't call her brothers by their names, but knows their favorite video game characters.  So we've got that going for us.  Which is nice.