Household Habits
- First, we discuss why its important to change the habit. Thumping up and down the stairs often wakes up the baby. Picking your nose is unsanitary and socially inappropriate. You get the idea.
- We also discuss the desired behavior. Walking up and down the stairs so quietly that no one can hear you. We are very specific.
- Then, we role play. Can you imagine us as we steal quietly up and down the stairs, pull tissues from the box and act out blowing our nose, hurry out to the car to open and shut the door, and as we practice situations where we should say, "thank you"?
- Through out the day we remind each other of our goal and focus on changing our behavior.
- The next morning at our morning devotional we analyze how we did. If the outcome is satisfactory we draw a new habit stick.
- Our annoying behavior turns into a challenge that the kids wholeheartedly take on and make into a game.For them it may be a game, but for me it is a subtle way of teaching them to notice their actions and how their actions effect others as well as making goals and following through.To get you started making your own habits jar, here's what we have in our jar:
- Into and out of the car quickly
- Elbows off table
- Shoes off at front door
- Chew quietly
- Dirty clothes and towel away
- Sit still
- Chew with mouth closed
- Fingers out of nose and mouth
- Car doors closed
- Up and downstairs quietly
- Say "Thank you"
- Turn lights off
- Shoes away
- Move out of the way of other pedestrians
- Proper book care
Thumping up and down the stairs, nose picking, leaving the car door open and forgetting to say, "thank you," are some of the aggravating habits that haunt our house. Constantly nagging my kids to "stop" this or that behavior wasn't working and irritating me even more. So I made a habits jar. It holds within its glass, the annoying habits we need to work on. Each morning during our morning devotional we choose a habit from the jar. (The privilege of picking the stick from the jar is given to the "Child of the Day".) The chosen habit becomes the focus for the day.
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