As a mom to two boys who are only getting rowdier with age, I often repeat myself.
"Don't touch each other."
"Are you allowed to do that?"
"Is that appropriate?"
These are all things I say or ask multiple times a day for behaviors they know are unacceptable: calling names, arguing, and standing on my antique trunk for the 4,000th time when that has never been allowed. It's as if they have cotton in their ears.
They're 7 and 5 and full of young-boy behaviors, such as not keeping their hands to themselves, loudness, constantly making messes, and more.
As they've gotten older and more ornery, my husband and I have had to get more creative with our parenting methods.
We dock our kids' allowance to get them to behave
The one move we've started seeing improvement from is docking allowance. In $0.50 increments, I'll pull funds from their weekly allowance. Fighting? Not listening? "Minus $0.50! Minus $1!" No one has lost more than $1.50 in a single day because, for them, this method is enough of a deterrent.
There's something about the immediate disappointment of knowing you lost money and also not getting the full allowance later. It's the one-two punch that makes the rules stick. (Then, if your brother got his full allowance and you didn't? Even more heartbreak.)
When they lose funds, I write it down or text my husband, who oversees their allowance each Friday. They do have the chance to earn money back with additional chores, but picking up after themselves, listening, getting themselves ready to leave the house, and doing certain chores are expected and don't count toward earning power. That's what earns their regular allowance.
Their base starts at $5 each week, and they can add to that with additional chores whether or not they've been docked. This is also their spending money; they get to spend every cent while we handle savings behind the scenes. They know the savings exist but don't have much interest otherwise.
We started docking their allowance because time-outs and grounding them didn't work
We decided to start docking their allowance when what we'd been doing was no longer working.
For one thing, whenever their dad tells them to do something, they tend to listen more than when I'm giving the instructions. But of course, their dad isn't always home, and I need to handle a lot of the parenting on my own. I am, after all, the primary caregiver, and their behavior (or lack thereof) is a direct reflection of me.
Grounding them worked, sometimes. The problem with it is that the punishment isn't immediate. And honestly, sometimes it's more of a grounding for me. I have to remember what they're restricted from doing and then also remember to enforce it. When I'm already running on mental fumes, this isn't ideal. To be fair, they're honest and will remind me what they're grounded from, but it's still something to remember.
A time-out happens in the moment, but once it's over, their mood is unlikely to have changed. More often than not, they went on to continue bickering or break another rule with their poor mood.
Docking our kids' allowance is fast and effective, and I can do it without raising my voice. We've been following this parenting tactic for the past several months and plan to continue it as long as it encourages good behavior with our kids.
