and use them—as we’ll see later—to help control sibling rivalry.
Timers can be part of routines for bedtime or bath time or getting up
and out in the morning.
Timers also can soften the blow of unavoidable spontaneous
requests. A friend of yours calls and says she’ll be over in fifteen
minutes. You say to your five-year-old daughter, “You’ve got three
things in the kitchen I would like picked up and put in your room. I’m
setting the timer for ten minutes, and I’ll bet you can’t beat it!”
Her response will often be, “Oh yes I can!” as she hurries off to do
the job. You could use this same approach to get an eleven-year-old to
pick up, but you would phrase your request in a more matter-of-fact
manner. If the child doesn’t respond before the timer dings, you can
use the docking system (see strategy 4) or a version of natural
consequences (see strategy 5).
Kitchen timers are also effective because they are not testable.
Machines cannot be emotionally manipulated. Imagine that you had
to remind your son to call his grandmother to thank her for the
birthday present she mailed. Your son balks, so you set the timer for
ten minutes. The boy’s response is “This is stupid!” (Testing Tactic 2,
temper). Your response is silence. The timer’s response is tick, tick,
tick.
- The Docking System
The principle of docking wages is this: if you don’t do the work, you
don’t get paid. The basic idea of the docking system is similar: if you
don’t do the work, I’ll do it for you—and you’ll pay me. The docking
system is for children who are kindergarten age or above.