One of my favourite techniques is what I call the ‘Eat That Frog ’ or what some people call the “When … Then” technique.
I read a great international bestselling book by Brian Tracy called ‘Eat that Frog’ which encourages you to get a difficult or unpleasant task out the the way first. Possibly it comes from the saying “If you eat a live frog every morning, nothing worse can happen to both of you for the rest of the day”.
So it’s about saying to your kids things like ‘ if you do your homework we can play a game of hide & seek afterwards’ or ‘if you get dressed quickly we can play with the rabbit for 10 mins before we have to leave for school’ – to ‘if you get that revision done – you can go round to your friend’s house later’ – you get the idea!
A ‘When-Then Routine’ is a technique to help your kids stay motivated to get everything done in the morning—even the “yucky” stuff like brushing their teeth and getting dressed. It structures everyone’s morning so that all the not-so-fun tasks are completed before the most desirable part of the morning like breakfast (or morning playtime, or TV time) etc
Find one thing that your child loves about morning time and make that thing dependent on them being done with the rest of the things on their morning routine checklist. For example, “when you get dressed, brush your teeth and make your bed, then we have breakfast.”
You can use this ‘Eat that Frog’ Technique for all sorts of things with kids of any age.
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