Sticker charts

I mentioned in a previous post that I would post again talking about Dima's wailing fits. It's hard to understand unless you've seen them, but they're not pretty and verrryyy frustrating. There are no tears--he just stands and wails. It doesn't start out particularly loud, but it gets louder as you let him continue, and he doesn't seem to be able to knock himself out of it once he gets going, which is the bigger problem.

So a few weeks ago, we started a sticker chart for him. Mark and I aren't fond of rewards charts in general because most people tend to use them to reward behaviors that should be expected. Here, we are more comfortable with it since we are trying to modify a behavior--break an old habit. Since we can't leave Zhenya out, we started a sticker chart for him as well for a different behavior we'd like to modify. So far, Dima is loving his sticker chart. When they get x amount of stickers (fill up their chart) they get ice cream! The first chart was only 5 stickers, the next one 8, and now Dima is up to 12 stickers. He has to go the whole day without wailing at school or at home to get his sticker at night. If you ask him, he will tell you why he gets stickers and what he gets when he gets all of his stickers. He's very excited about it. I'm more excited than he is to try to knock this behavior out. The real point for me was to break him of the habit and help him learn how to express his emotions appropriately. He has had a couple of days where he wailed since we started his sticker chart, which was nice because he got to see the direct consequences of that action (not getting a sticker that day). Since we started this, I've noticed that he has actually been more weepy than before--the littlest things make him want to start crying. But I think what's happening is he is allowing himself to express his emotions as they happen, instead of shutting down and going into wail mode. I am MUCH happier with this behavior. And he is learning that he can control his emotions--that when he sad or upset he has the ability to stop himself from crying.**

We had an incident the other night at the dinner table. The boys are supposed to ask to be excused, and they know the correct way to ask but sometimes they "choose" a power struggle and try to get away with not saying it correctly. This happened with Dima (last night it was Zhenya so don't think he's the innocent one ;)), and he sat at the dinner table for about 10 minutes after Zhenya had gotten up since he wouldn't say the phrase correctly. I was washing the dishes, and he got so frustrated that he started quietly crying. I could hear him but I didn't say anything, hoping he would be able to gain control without leading into a wailing fit. Then...he stopped himself. HUGE, HUGE step for him!! Not only did he stop himself, but he then proceeded to ask to be excused correctly and was immediately excused from the table. He was fine the rest of the night.

**I think I should mention here that we aren't trying to prevent our boys from crying. They know they can cry if they are hurt and so on. We are trying to help them learn that they have control over their emotions and how to use that control appropriately.

I know many people see the boys and think they are so well adjusted, and they are. They have truly made amazing progress in the last 8 months. But there are still many emotional issues that we deal with, habits that they have developed over the last few years to cope with the things they have gone through. And while they are doing wonderfully, we as their parents still have to work on teaching them appropriate ways to handle their emotions and things that happen in life. So if we do things that sometimes seem a little odd, or a little strict, please understand that everything we do is done with our boys' best interests at heart, and is done with lots of prayers for wisdom and guidance from the One who knows our boys even better than we do.