Thursday, March 8, 2012

Consequences = boring stuff

Lilie has been fighting a hard battle with potty training.  She's clear on the principles, but sometimes forgets to listen to her body.  Accidents happen.

We put together a motivational program combining sticks and carrots: no computer games until she's been dry for 24 hours, and a coin to put towards her toy of choice if she does go 24 hours.

We've been putting her in a diaper at night, and it was 'damp' this morning.  Lilie's been on a run of dry days, so Katie made an executive decision: we'll pretend it didn't happen, as long as she stays totally dry all day today.

"Daddy, my consequences are going away," Lilie explained when I came home from the gym.

Katie brought me up to speed.  I wanted to make sure Lilie understood that she needed to stay dry, though.

"That's good, pumpkin - but you know that you have to stay dry allllll day for that to work, right?"

"That's right, Lilie," said Katie.  "If you have an accident today, then all the consequences come back -".

Lilie interrupted her with a huge sigh as she slumped to the floor and rolled her eyes. 

She continued to wilt as she groaned , "Boring stuff."

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