Go to the craft store and buy a bag of clear, blue stones.  Or go to the beach and find 30 smooth pebbles.  Put them in a jar.  These stones will be the start of an amazingly effective behavioral system.

Think of a behavior you want to extinguish.  Back talk is a biggie.  Forget everything you’ve been doing to try to stop it (unless what you’ve been doing has worked, in which case you can stop reading this post and go find something else to do).  Here’s the new plan:

At the start of each week, your child gets 30 stones in her jar.  Each time she talks back (uses a rude tone, sasses you, argues after you’ve asked her to stop), you are going to calmly say, “That will cost you a stone.”  If your child immediately stops the backtalk, nothing else needs to happen.  If she continues, walk over to her jar and calmly remove one stone.  At the end of the week, she gets a point for each stone OVER 15 that remain in the jar.  If she has 18 stones left, she gets 3 points (18 minus 15).  If she has 27 stones left, she gets 12 points (27 minus 15).  If she has 9 stones left, she gets zero.  Using 15 as a base is important; for behavior to change, your child needs to be putting forth effort to hold onto her stones.  Fewer than 16 stones shows very little effort, and should not be rewarded.

Decide on a menu of rewards based on points – 15 points might earn a trip to the bookstore; 25 points a visit to the local SPCA to play with cats; 40 points a sleepover with a friend.

Some important factors:

1.  Your child should only lose 1 stone at a time.  Don’t retaliate by saying, “You just lost another stone” if your child sasses you when you take the first stone.  Upping the ante in this way will quickly wipe your child out, rendering the system useless.  If you take a stone and your child keeps giving you a hard time, shift to a different system for setting limits.  1-2-3:Magic is particularly effective (First infraction, say “that’s one”; if child continues, say “that’s two”; if keeps going, say “that’s three” and deliver a consequence such as time-out or the brief loss of a privelege).

2.  Keep your tone neutral.

3.  Don’t engage in the specifics of what your child is saying.  When he talks back, simply state, “That will be a stone” (eventually shortened to “Stone”) and if he doesn’t quickly stop, take the stone.

4.  Explain the system to your child before beginning.  Focus on the benefits to your child – less yelling and the opportunity to earn cool stuff.

The beauty of the system is that it helps your child modify a negative behavior with relatively little fuss.  Try it on backtalk, swearing, complaining, and negative persistence (whining, begging).  Then weigh in.  How did it work?