By Kim McGinty
I’ve heard it takes reminding a child 500 times to instill a pattern of behavior. Like brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth… When I first heard that from another mom, I balked. And though I’ve never kept count, there must be a magic number in there somewhere because my kids now brush their teeth, shower, dress, and most times take their dishes to the sink without being told. Was it 500 times? Possibly, but then again they’re 12 and 14.
No mom sets out to be a nag. I wanted to be the fun new age-y mom who starts every sentence with yes, uses positive reinforcement and speaks in hushed tones instead of yelling so my kids might quit throwing whatever hard object was in their hands to hear what I had to say. But that image sailed long ago with any grace and composure I once had at the helm. I know why moms get the bad rap. Some days I feel like nothing more than an empty she-droid spouting the same five orders. So for my sanity, and that my kids might learn to listen to me again, I came up with a solution: A sign that can nag for me.
My initial plan was to create something in Word with a cool font and catchy clip-art but decided the kids would wonder if I had so much time on my hands, why didn’t I just do it myself, whatever it is. So instead I scribbled two signs on recycled paper and titled them “Checklist.” The idea was, instead of having to hear me say, “Hang up your towel,” “Put your clothes away,” “Pick up your trash,” they’d simply see it and incorporate it into their morning routine.
I won’t brag—they weren’t a thing of beauty. But they were concise and visible and disengaged me from the role of petty enforcer that’s slowly been killing me. I taped one to each bedroom door.
At first they didn’t seem to notice the signs or chose to ignore them. So as a guide, I would point. An easy gesture to miss, so most mornings it took a little extra, and I’d have to tap the sign like this, tap, tap, tap. Which worked until eventually, like a leaky faucet, it just became background noise.
After several days I upped my approach to a simple, single phrase: “Read the sign,” as if it were a mysterious message they might consider looking into. Over the course of a couple weeks, my mysterious message evolved from “Read the sign” to the progressively agitated “Did you read the sign?”…”Don’t forget to read the sign”…”Seriously, you read the sign?!” It dawned on me I was putting more effort into the reading than what the outcome should have been and in the process had become a weird, passive-aggressive nag that lurked around their bedrooms.
I blamed poor sign placement and moved them next to their light switches, determined from here on out to let the signs do all the talking. But my kids forget to turn their lights off half the time, so I got out my fat-tipped Sharpie and cardstock and made bolder signs with block letters. I hung them from the tops of their door frames, visually impossible to miss.
Nothing changed. (Between the gum wrappers and Band-Aids, my daughter is like a walking ticker tape parade without a sweeper in sight).
I made two additional signs with black arrows, then attached them to the bottom of the originals with Scotch tape for emphasis. Yesterday I came home and my son had taken his down because “it kept hitting me in the head.”
Experts say never shame your kids. I’m not. I’m shaming whatever expert spewed that piddly number, 500. Who are these kids anyway? I want to see their rooms.
***********
About Kim McGinty
Kim McGinty is a Santa Cruz, California based writer and mom of two. When not inspired to write, she spends her days with other artistic endeavors, surfing, surviving the tweens, teens and an endless amount of dog hair. Her work can also be found on Scarymommy/Clubmid, BLUNTmoms and Mamalode.