I’d like to introduce our “Privilege Poofs”!
I eyed these up in Walmart awhile back and then circled back to touch them and ehhh maybe hug them (they’re so soft!) at least 3 times all the while internally arguing with myself that we NEED them, no we don’t, yes we do, no we don’t…..
My “NO we don’t” argument was :
1. I don’t want to store things we don’t use
2. I don’t like wasting money
3. I think they’ll get destroyed (the beanbags in the bin all need to be sewn or have recently been sewn and that is not a skill I possess)
My YES we do argument was, “but they’re so cool and the kids will love them!”
Obviously the yes we need them side won.
Here’s where I also won and the kids did too:
The privilege poofs were explicitly introduced to the kids and we did a lesson on exactly how they are earned, how they are to be used and how they can be lost because yep, you can def loss privileges around here (temporarily while we quickly support you to make an alternative pro social choice & reinforce use of that pro social choice, of course!)
All of this is so social in nature!! …and guess what, all of our kids have things at home that needed to be treated respectfully and go to other places where they need to treat things respectfully. This is a life skill.
Proud to report that we are going strong on week 4 with no rips, stains of tears and not a single person has been bopped on the head with one (although one was definitely worn as a hat briefly before being reminded of the hineys only rule)
Moral of the story: Go ahead and get the fun / nice things if you can and set the kids up for success by making expectations clear and consistently following through