Rewards and Punishment

Childcare centres, parents, workplace, schools and sports club, apply the reward and punishment method.   Reward the job well done and punish mischief and not so good deeds.

As I mentioned earlier,  Ms Smartypants 2  earned some for not displaying the P sign in her car, a stiff verbal warning from (a boy in blue) the police, and a fine.  She wrote to the department and was pardoned.  She won’t tell me exactly what she said to them.  God forbid if she would have said *my mom  blah blah  .... and it’s an emergency*.  Good news to me and for my purse though. What I was most pleased about is, she's now taking responsibility to sort things out.  I will not mention the organizing  and responsibility of their personal space, they are getting there.  It must be a teen-age thing; you’re not cool if your bedroom is speck and span.  You know they purposely run a ladder on their new stockings?  It’s the *cool for school* thing.  I’m  thinking positive, that the messy room is just a teen-age statement for now.   They used to be very tidy with it, I don’t know what happened.  Trust me, I tried the rewards and punishment method.  Now, I use the *don’t look, close the bedroom door method * until I decide to use the *I should get in there and clean it myself method*.

At the workplace workers get rewarded for job well done, free lunches, movie tickets, gift vouchers, parties at Christmas all paid for the company.  Then there's *disciplinary action* yes that’s the term not the P (unishment) word nowadays they tend to use sophisticated words and titles at the establishments and the form of it varies from company to company and on the type of offense. 

My kids know their mom just use the bluff method.   But deep down there’s only one method I use all the time and that is the LOVE them unconditionally method.  They’re not kids for long, let them have fun now and guide them not control and run their lives.   Their brain will eventually get hard wired, (experts say teens brains are not that hard wired yet, that’s why they act like that) and they will decide and organize their lives, eventually.  In this case I believe the experts.  Now I will reward myself with my favourite ice-cream, after I punish myself with that strenuous dance and yoga workout or is it punish with ice-cream and reward with YOGA?  And then waiting for me are the duties of being the household managing director, the rewards of such job really outweighs any task it brings, really it does!

Sleek ...it's a tool!

I don't keep up with what the Jones’s got.  I do my own thing.  But I do keep informed of what’s new there and what’s exciting.   I get excited when something is useful, simple, compact and streamlined.  I like minimalism and portability of things. If I can get my way I would love to get rid of things around the house and streamline things, de-clutter and keep only the essentials.  But I have others to share the household with.  So, I learnt to close my eyes, tiptoe around things that I have no control over.  I do have control on other things such as which phone to use and what music to listen to.

It was time to upgrade my iPhone 3G, and they just have released the latest one.  I couldn’t contain my excitement this time, when the package arrived  in due course.  It was a good move that I pre-ordered  it online.  I unpacked it with so much enthusiasm, and yes pictures of it were plastered in my FACEBOOK wall.  There it was, so sleek, dual camera, video capability, better pixels and higher  resolution.  I was an advocate for the iPhone 4S.  My clients were not exempt from it.  Especially the savvy ones who flash their iPhone and fiddle around with it when doing their business transaction.   It think it's a bit rude when they don't concentrate on their business, when they answer a call or text message.  I occasionally  throw in, ”i got my iPhone 4S" and try to  razzle  dazzle them with how fun it is and blabber with iCloud and all.   Then  I would get their full undivided attention, especially the ones who are still waiting for their order.   The more so, when I mention SIRI, which by now everybody knows about her.   The virtual assistant that make phone calls,  get the weather forecast, google things, and even played my music from the song list when I told it to play ADELE’S , SOMEONE LIKE YOU.  One asked “how did you get SIRI to work?”   I just laugh and geared them back to the business of the day.  

It’s not just material thing, it’s a tool.  And the best tool there is.