As I mentioned yesterday, my wife has been having problems with our foster children. Thankfully, they listen to me much better. Of course, that also frustrates her.
However, today we discovered a possible way to get them to daycare each morning without it turning into a shouting match – stickers. If you have a child these days, you know how prevalent they have become. Every teacher/daycare worker/tired parent has them.
Birthday parties – stickers.
Daycare – stickers.
Chuck E. Cheese – stickers.
They’re everywhere. While we have steadfastly refused to get into pushing stickers for fear of creating addicts, we can’t deny our kids are well aware of them.
And now we have become dealers ourselves.
As they were almost out the door this morning, I thought to myself, “What if I just give them stickers in the morning, instead of when they get home? Will that change their bevahior on the ride to daycare?”
I got a quick answer.
Not ten minutes later, my wife called and said, “The stickers worked. There was no noise in the car. None.” Now, normally this means everyone has been unruly and dad has threatened to give them to gypsies or leave them at some other undesired location outside town. (Uh, no, we aren’t leaving the kids anywhere. Didn’t your mom play with you as a kid?) This time, they just wanted to keep the stickers and were willing to stay quiet for that to happen.
If it’s really that simple, I will be buying in bulk at some street corner late at night.