The Experiment

Lately Maya has left a little to be desired in the discipline department. To be frank, she's been going through the terrible twos...just two years late. Everything is a battle and it's at its worst when we're in airports. One thing parents who travel a lot know is that there are times when you HAVE to have a sort of zero tolerance with your kids for safety reasons. Maya's favorite time to decide not to listen to us is security lines, arguably the worst place to not listen. Since we live close to DC we have to go through the extra level of security at gates. Oh yes, folks, I get to be interrogated just so I can enter my own country. I digress. Anyway, those are the times that are the worst. There's a ton of tired grumpy people all waiting to get on the plane and here's Maya trying to run straight past the security officers to play with the x-ray belt. On the flight home from our Turkey/England trip, she was driving me batty. She wouldn't keep quiet, she was constantly asking for something, she was touching EVERYTHING, kicking the backs of chairs, the list goes on. All of this after she had kept us up all night because she had to sleep in bed with us and then we all woke up at 5 am for our first flight. By the second flight, I was ready to wave the white flag. Show me some mercy kid!

So, with all that said (yes, you could say vented), I'm going to do an experiment. I turned to some of my fabulous friends for help and one of them mentioned a great idea. Poker chips that can be given and taken away for both good and bad behavior. Earn enough and you get something cool. Do something bad and you get some taken away. The thing I love about this idea is it's portability. Charts are nice but you can't really take a chart with you. A bag of poker chips, though, can easily be kept in my carry on or my day pack so I can really take them anywhere and we can be consistent. Our trip to Tallinn is in a few weeks and I think that will be an excellent time to really try this idea out. Im going to start now with them, but that will be the true test. Will we be able to stick with the plan or will it all sink faster than the Titanic? Keep reading to find out!