Encouraging Positive Behavior: Warm Fuzzies Jar

About a year ago, my daughter, then almost 3 years old, started to act out a lot.  We couldn't figure out why or pinpoint anything specific that could be causing it.  My husband and I spent a lot of time discussing what we should do and as we talked, we realized that she responded really well to positive reinforcement.  It's not like we weren't giving her positive attention.  We said "thank you" when she did something we asked and praised her when she did something well.  But we noticed that when we used specifics to communicate positive reinforcement, she would do more things to receive more praise from us and the "bad" things she was doing decreased.  For example, instead of just saying "thank you" when she followed directions, we would say, "thank you for being a good listener".  When we noticed her being kind to her brother without being asked, we said, "you are such a good big sister to your brother."  So while we noticed an increase in the kind of behavior we wanted to see, we also recognized that she is still a little girl, and little girls (and boys) sometimes need a little extra push to be good.

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