Free The 1-2-3 Magic Workbook for Christian Parents: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan, Chris Webb Page B

cooking
    a new recipe for dinner and you are so excited about this new dish that
    58 1-2-3 MAGIC
    you can hardly stand it. At 5:15 p.m., however, you suddenly realize you
    are missing three essential ingredients. To make matters worse, your
    six-year-old and eight-year-old are in the other room playing well
    together for the first time in two-and-a-half years. You’re going to have
    to interrupt them and there’s no time to get a sitter.

    Here’s what you do. Tell the kids that you have to go shopping, it
    will take about an hour and they have to go with you. You know they don’t
    want to, but you’re all stuck. Tell them the deal will be this: If they’re
    “good” while you’re out (meaning they don’t hit a count of 4—you’re
    giving them an extra count because of the length of the trip and because
    they don’t want to go), you’ll buy them a treat. Their reward will be $1
    cash or $1 worth of whatever else they may want to buy. If they hit the
    count of 4 during the trip, however, the reward is gone.

    Some parents feel this is bribery. It is! But the real definition of
    bribery is paying someone to do something illegal. Here we’re paying
    the kids to do something legal, and it works.

    My wife and I had a very interesting experience using this TOA tactic
    with our kids when we used to go out for ice cream in the evening. The
    first few times we went out for our after-dinner treat, the kids fought like
    cats and dogs in the back seat. By the time we all got our ice cream, no
    one was in any kind of a party mood anymore.

    So one evening I told the kids this: “Guys, we’re going out for ice
    cream. But there’s going to be a new deal. If you guys hit a count of three
    before we get there, we turn right around and come home. Nobody will
    get any ice cream.”

    With hopeful hearts, we took off in the car. The children started
    fighting. I said,“That’s 1, third count blows the trip.” Sure enough, they
    were soon at 2, and then, only half way to the ice cream store, they hit
    a 3. I turned the car around and went home. The kids were not pleased;
    they looked stunned and resentful.

    A few days later—this time less hopeful—we took another shot at an
    ice cream outing. We weren’t three hundred yards from the house when the
    kids started fighting again. I said,“That’s 1, third time blows the trip.” They
    hit a 2 and then a 3, and the car got turned around and headed for home.

    I’m sure that before our next attempt at an evening treat the kids had
    had a conversation with each other. Their conversation probably went
    WHAT TO DO IN PUBLIC 59
    something like this: “Isn’t it a shame that most children in the world,
    except us, have normal fathers? Unfortunately, our Dad turned out to be
    a shrink. But he’s got the car and he’s got the money, so if we want some
    ice cream, we’d better put up with his stupid games!”

    So, about a week later, our intrepid group once again set out on
    its quest. To my amazement, the kids started fighting. I said,“That’s 1,
    third time blows the trip.” To my further amazement, however, the kids
    instantly became quiet and they were good as gold the whole rest of the
    way. We all enjoyed our dessert.

    One moral of this story: Sometimes it takes a few trials for you to
    make believers out of the kids. By the way, I’ve often been asked what
    to do if while on the way one child acts up and the other one doesn’t. The
    answer: The one gets the ice cream and the other one doesn’t. But don’t
    expect to enjoy the ride home.
    Keep Moving
    Another tactic that some parents have used successfully in public takes us
    back to our grocery store example, where the youngster was having a major
    fit in the candy section of aisle 5. What some parents have done is simply
    leave the child on the floor and move on to aisle 6. When they meet someone
    in aisle 6, they say, “Boy, do you hear al that racket over there?”

    Seriously, what often happens is that