Sticker charts
I wasn’t sure what this week’s post should be about.
At one point, I thought I’d write about an Instagram story I saw on the @twomumsfoursuns account; it was a picture of a reward chart one of the mothers had made for their children, except the stickers were handed out not for the completion of household chores or daily to-dos, but for acts of kindness, compassion and generosity. I’d never seen anything like it. It stayed on my mind long after I put my phone down that morning.
I was thinking I’d write about how many clients I see struggling with s l o w i n g d o w n, and how many, even without noticing, mention the word “laziness” when referring to rest (sometimes I’ll repeat this word back to them, just to point it out, and they’ll smile and explain that theoretically they know it’s not laziness, but it feels a lot like laziness).
And I was thinking about all the other job charts I’d seen in the past, and how many of these set children up to see value in doing-related things rather than being-related things, and then these children grow up associating reward with doing, doing, doing, and then, eventually, they get stuck and exhausted and stressed and sad, and then they come and see me.
And then I wondered if this was maybe going too far with the idea - they’re just sticker charts, for fuck’s sake, Annelise - and whether trying to write about this would come out as yet another half-baked argument that none of you would even care about.
I messaged Hannah, the mother who runs the Instagram account, and told her I’d avoided sticker charts up to now but was reconsidering after seeing her beautiful approach to it.
And she replied, saying there was only one sticker chart between the four children, rather than one each, because she wanted them to work as a team rather than competing as individuals, which made me want to write back once again to ask if we could maybe become BFFs and add book recommendations and life hacks to the things we shared, along with parenting philosophies, but I decided it would be better to put my phone down and complete a short breathing exercise rather than majorly embarrass myself.
After seeing the sticker chart story, I started wondering about the areas in which I’m accidentally zooming in on the wrong things in my own children’s lives, reinforcing things I should be ignoring, ignoring things I should be reinforcing.
When I showed Mo and Hazel the photo of the chart and explained why I was so impressed by the idea of focusing on what truly mattered, they asked, faces bright, if we could start one at our place.
“What would our reward be?” Mo asked. “Extra screen time?”
“And what if we do something kind but you don’t see us doing it?” Hazel asked.
“We wouldn’t be doing it for the stickers, or for the rewards!” I explained, patiently. “We’d be doing it because what actually matters is being kind and compassionate and generous… things like that!”
The kids stared at me blankly.
“Could we maybe get extra pocket money?” Mo suggested.
“Or, like, a day where we could all go bowling as a family?” added Hazel.
Anyway.
I thought I’d probably write about something else this week.