How to motivate the kids to behave

When the kids are driving you all kinds of crazy because they are not listening to you and you need something to motivate them. 

I was an au-pair for more than three years and I've met many children and faced many problems. We had some spitting, hitting, peeing all over the house to get me into trouble, I've even seen some attempts to murder a younger sibling. That all happens. Children do that. But there are some ways to make them do it less often. Some of my favourite things to do that are charts and time out. 

In the end it should like like this. Or better.

Charts are brilliant for kids because they can see their progress at any given time and they can show their parents how many smiley faces they got today for being good. 

Most used charts are the ones where you just have the name of the child and put stars next to it for any good day, but I have something special. I call it the Toy Shop Chart. You can even ask the kids to help you make it, that will keep them entertained! 

What you need is a piece of paper [the bigger the better, but at least A4] and some colouring pencils or markers. 

First, draw a hill on the paper. A big, big hill. On the top of the hills, there is a house. The house is a toy shop. Now, draw some squares from the bottom of the hill up to the toy shop. Don't forget to make the way up from a lot of squares, twist the way, don't make it too easy for them [but not too difficult either, they would get bored of it]. Colour it in. And you're done. That was easy, wasn't it?

I found it to work the best when I put in on the fridge and bought some special cute magnets, animal magnets usually work.Let's say that you are looking after two kids, a girl named Kate and her brother Simon. Kate wants to be the pink bunny, Simon decides to be the monkey.

If they do as they are told [tidy their rooms, do their homework, etc.], they move up one square. If they don't do what they are told or if they misbehave [hit their sibling, throw something at you, etc], they move one square down. When they get up to the Toy Shop, it means that they get something from the toy shop. Or other kind of rewards. The house can be anything, a sweet shop or a video store, so when they get up there, they will get a lollipop or you will rent a new movie for a night. 

The main rule of the chart: Be fair. Make sure that you are fair with the kids. Don't use the chart just to punish them, use it to reward them as well. Don't reward/punish one child more than the other. Make sure that they are standing next to you when their magnets are moving up or down, so they can actually see that they are doing well or badly. 

The time-out is for punishment only. Let's stay with my two imaginary kids [who are definitely not named after my favourite actors Kate Winslet and Simon Pegg]. Let's say that Simon, who is 5 years old, hits his 4 year old sister Kate. Send him into a time out. It can be sitting on a  step, it can be standing in the hall, sitting on a rug. He is five years old, so he will be in the time out for five minutes. If he was seven years old, it will be seven minutes. Three minutes for a three year old. I think you get it now. Age turns into minutes. Trust me that even stupid five minutes is almost unbearable for him. When in the time out, they are not allowed to do anything, play with anything, talk to you, you don't talk to them. They are not allowed to leave the spot. It's like a prison without bars. If they leave their spot, the time starts again. It's important that you watch the time really closely and when the time is up, you stop the time out. 

At the end of the time out, you come to the child, get your eyes on his eye level, and clearly say to him: "Do you understand why I put you here? I put you into time out because you hit your sister and that is not nice. Now I want you to go and apologize to her." It's really important for you to explain to the child what he did wrong and that he understands it. Make sure he apologizes. The part of the apology should be a hug. 

The first time out will be difficult. I remember a three year old not being able to stay sitting on the rug and running off constantly, se we had to start the time out over and over again and it took over 90 minutes. The next time out took us only about 45 minutes and after few days we managed a time out when he was just sitting there for three minutes without running off. It does work, you just need to be patient.

Good luck!

Did you ever have trouble with the kids behaviour? What did you do? Share your ideas in the comments!