Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

Having trouble with your kids, but you think it's bogus to create a system where you give them rewards for good behavior? You have no idea how many times I've heard that in my office. Typically, I suppose, I don't actually hear it as much as I see it in people's eyes. You might be happy to know, however, that there is an alternative. It may sound silly, but it comes straight from the heart. If you use "The Satisfaction Meter," you need only monitor your level of satisfaction within your heart. If you are not satisfied, you merely say "I'm not satisfied" and your children immediately experience the consequences of your dissatisfaction. "The Satisfaction Meter" exists within each of us and simply indicates whether or not we feel satisfied with our kids' behavior. I know I'm making it sound real simple when sometimes it's really not, but don't worry, I know it's going to take a bit of work. The important and problematic part is that a parent must develop the ability to look inside him or herself and honestly appraise whether or not they are satisfied with their child's behavior. If you can do that well, then you already know it's an extremely effective method. In fact, "The Satisfaction Meter" is truly the method people are using when they're parenting is going well.

Let's start with the basics. Your kids have one main job. If they adequately perform the duties necessitated by that job, us parents will typically give them all they could possibly want. That job is to SATISFY their parents. The only problem is that kids don't know that's their job. Us parents are so busy considering a wide variety of factors, that we don't make this job clear to our kids. In fact, most kids think it's their parents' job to satisfy the kids because our love makes us cater to their every whim. Once it is clear to kids that a kid's job is to satisfy their parents, it is so easy and straightforward for kids to earn their privileges, it's a joke. Parents really want to be satisfied and thus, most of us are, if anything, too easy on our kids.

Being too easily satisfied is just one of many reasons that kids don't know that their job is to satisfy us. Many other considerations also get in the way of acting upon the level of satisfaction we feel about our kids' behavior. We want to be fair. We want to be consistent. We want to be in agreement with our spouse or the other parents involved. We don't want to make a scene. We want to look like we are respected. We don't want to be judged by others. We're tired. We want to partake in the reward our children would get if they were good. The possibilities are endless. But none of that has anything to do with whether you actually feel satisfied. Those other considerations have everything to do with giving in and lacking consistency.

Once you get used to the idea of really basing privileges on how satisfied you are with your child's behavior, there are certain aspects of "The Satisfaction Meter" that must be discussed. Let's just talk about the essentials...

For the complete article, please buy The Emotional Toolbox book.