The Incredbile Years {Routines}

I'm going to skip ahead a few "lessons", but a big part of The Incredible Years program is routines. This past week we started a new set of routines with the new school year starting, I thought I'd share how we are taking on the mornings.

One of the concepts to The Incredible Years is giving as few commands as possible. Why? Well when you give a command the kiddo must follow it and if they don't they go to time out. So, if you don't want to be spending your whole day giving time outs, then you watch how you phrase things and do what you can to avoid a command. It turns out there are quite a few ways of getting around those darn commands and you know what...the ways around work better then shouting or giving a command.

Shane and Adalyn know the morning routine, but it was taking me telling me (aka commanding them) through each step of the way. Often resulting in battles and dragging feet.

That is where these guys come into play. They aren't beautiful by any means. I used old cookie sheets I had in the play/craft cabinet. You can get cookie sheets at the $1 store! Making this little routine project pretty cheap. I printed pictures and lamented them (to preserve them a bit, but you don't have to). Then I stuck on magnets. I've even seen magnets at the $1 store, too.

Each morning I had the kiddos theirs and they get started. They can do their routine in any order they want (besides breakfast needs to be eaten before teeth brushing). When they do one of them they move it to the bottom of the sheet.

This has been working wonders for Shane!! Additional motivation is that when they are done they get a TV. If they take to long getting ready then there isn't time for TV. If they get things done very timely they may even have time for two TV's. (We have always allowed the kids to watch two TVs in the morning as a general TB guideline).

I'd say the battles with Shane during the mornings have reduced drastically. Adalyn is kinda a whole other story, but she would much rather watch TV with Shane then get stuck in her room because she didn't get ready. Generally in the end she does what she has to do.

Setting up a routine (for any part of the day) helps lessen commands, in turn decreasing battles, fights, yelling and time outs.

Pretty simple, but oh so effective!