One of my goals this week was to not to elaborate and give long speeches. That worked really well. Instead of telling them in 10 different ways how and why I do not like them to throw their schoolbags on the ground as soon as they get in the house, I just said ‘guys, schoolbags in the scullery’ and that worked just fine. Day 3 I didn’t even have to say it myself, Linden did it for me ‘Guys, don’t do that, the bags belong in the scullery’.

Other example of using different techniques was when Linden wanted to eat the lollipop he bought last weekend just before dinner. When I said he couldn’t, I gave him a few options of concrete times at which he could. He chose after finishing dinner and desert.

But by the time we had brushed teeth and read a bedtime story we realized we had forgotten all about it. Linden was really upset when I told him he couldn’t eat his lollipop and even started rolling on the ground. I successfully tried different things.

He couldn’t hide his smile and was upset when I ate the fantasy lollipop with strawberry taste that I caught midair. But that was just a short term solution. He did like to get some options presented again, either straight after school or after breakfast (just for once because we had forgotten after dinner). He settled on breakfast and just to be sure I wrote a note with a drawing of the lollipop and put that next to his breakfast plate. He really liked seeing that first thing in the morning.