Good Behavior Treasure Box

Let me start off by saying that I don't think that Melia is a bad or misbehaved child at all. I fully do believe that she has her trying moments like most kids do, but it could be a lot worse! For the most part, Melia behaves me pretty well and doesn't give me a very hard time. Here are the areas of improvement I see for Melia's behavior:

1. Getting up in the morning - I wake Melia up around 6:00 am each day during the week for school which isn't fun, even if you're a grown up! She doesn't quite like it and isn't very excited to go to day care. I'll admit, this is our biggest area for a need in improvement, on her side and mine. I confess that I do need to have her to bed by 8:30 pm at latest during the week if not earlier. I like hanging out with her and so I find myself easily persuaded by my 4 year old to push the bed time limit. Getting her to bed earlier truly would make things easier on both of us!!! For her part, she complains about me taking off her pjs and putting on her school clothes. Sometimes she complains about the shoes she wears, usually complains about me doing her hair, and almost always complains about using the restroom before we leave. These things slow us down in getting out of the door, add stress to my morning routine, make me grumpy, and sure make those idiot rush hour drivers seem even DUMBER!

2. Listening to my directions the first time I give them. This is an issue with all kids at some point or another. Usually Melia is pretty good about doing things but lately, it seems that I have to ask multiple times for her to obey or get to the point of her loosing toys for her to listen. Ugh - talk about mentally draining! I would love, love, love for her to listen and obey quickly and without back talk - dream on, right?

3. Doing chores - I give Melia little chores around the house so she can help out and also to aide in her feeling like part of the family; a contributing member. I ask her to put more dog food in Koda's bowl, give the dog clean water, fold the dish towels, hand towels, wash cloths, and rags, to put away her clothes when I'm doing laundry. For her own personal chores: brush her hair, brush her teeth and floss, pick out her outfits the night before, and put her dirty clothes in the hamper. I constantly am deterred with excuses such as "I don't feel like I can do this all myself" or "I don't want to open the door myself" or "I want you to brush my teeth" or "I don't care if I have tangles - I want a mohawk anyways" or "I can't turn on the water myself" which is completely valid - these faucet handles suck!

4. Sharing - this isn't such a big deal nowadays. Sometimes Melia will still be possessive over certain toys when she has friends or cousins over. I've told her that if she is worried about a favorite toy being broken by a friend that she should put it up before they come over so it's not an issue. This has been quite successful when it comes to arguments, plus 5 points for mommy! When she has younger cousins over she tends to find them a different, more entertaining toy to play with that distracts them from the prized possession of hers. Then other times, she just has a hard time sharing period!

5. Being assertive - at school/day care she seems to be a lot more shy and doesn't stick up for herself as much as I think she should. She'll tell me about other kids taking toys from her or hitting her but she'll tell me that she doesn't tell her teachers!!!!! I've explained to her that she must speak up if someone is not being nice to her if she can't resolve it herself. For the hitting - if some punk - A kid from school hits her, she has my AND the teacher's permission to push the kid away and yell "STOP HITTING ME!" or "DON'T TOUCH ME" or "DON'T HURT ME!" followed by a strong shove. We practiced her pushing me back when we were sitting on my bed and she has some muscle behind those skinny arms of hers! I talked to her teachers and they agreed with what I told her - I just don't want her to get pushed around. Plus, she was just doing what I've taught her; don't hit people. Without any siblings I think she doesn't really know when this is truly applicable and I never told her a time before this that it was.

That's really it for me. She's a great kid and is making me really proud. She is really trying hard with learning all her ABC's, recognizing the letters uppercase and lowercase, remember the words that go with each letter. I couldn't be happier with her. She makes me laugh every day and really has such a kind little heart!!!

So back to the point, I want to encourage her good behavior throughout the week so decided to create a treasure box for her. If she earns 5 stars out of the 7-day week for following directions then she will be able to pick one thing from the treasure box at the end of the week. She's really excited about this too!

Here we are getting started: I bought a cardboard box with a lid from the craft store


We painted the outside of the box - Melia painted the bottom part red (because that's her daddy's favorite color), I painted the lid purple.



These are the supplies that I used in addition to the basic paint



I free-hand painted a gold crown...I painted Melia's name on the box... I never claimed to be artistic!


I added some glitter glue to the lettering...


Ta-Daaa! Here we are with the lettering all done


Next we added the bling to it - I did the lid, Melia did the bottom part


Now time to fill the box! I created some tickets to add to the treasure box in lieu of a toy. Some of them were Melia's ideas and I thought they were pretty good!


And the toys... I got most of these items from the Dollar Spot at Target all for $1 so not bad on cost either.


That's that! My update on this is sure to include the results of this treasure box, I'm sure that I will have a perfectly behaved child now! Lol!!!