Lunch Box Notes and More

Experts agree that positive reinforcement really works – no matter what age you’re working with.  As the mom of a toddler and a preschooler, I do my share of positive reinforcement throughout the day and the results have been quite amazing.  Instead of kids that cry, whine, and fuss to get my attention, I’ve got little ones who can {usually} hang out in adult settings and situations and still manage to receive compliments from the other parents in attendance. While I can’t take credit for most of their good-natured attitudes, I do feel like the style of parenting my husband and I have adopted and the ways we reward positive behavior has played a role.

Because this style of parenting has worked so well for us, I have long been on the search for some positive reinforcement tools that could grow with our kids, allowing us to make the sometimes difficult transition into school, independence and self-sufficiency as easy as possible. 

As part of our search, we found the book Lunch Box Letters that was written by Carol Sperandeo and Bill Zimmerman, two parents who swear by the benefits of lunchbox love for children.  Not only does the book tell you how {and why} to write to your child, it also includes 75 colorful sheets you can use to write your letters on.  When paired with the package of 30 fun pull-tab inspired Lunch Mail Miniature Greeting Cards, you could potentially have over a hundred days of special letters tucked into the lunchbox {or backpack, overnight bag, etc} for your little one, your husband, or someone else special.

We also love the Kids TableTopics To Go, which is a spin-off of the classic TableTopics game.  Kids TableTopics includes conversation starter questions such as “On a scale of 1-10, how strict are your parents” and “what’s the secret to being happy” that would be good questions for that tween/teen age group that’s so hard to get talking.  There are some questions for the younger group as well, but as the aunt of quite a few tweens and teens, I think the game will be a great tool for helping break the ice and will definitely be using it more with them than my younger kids. 

We’ve only been doing the Lunch Box Notes system for a few days now but I can honestly say that there has been a whole lot less coercing that needs to be done to convince my oldest to clean, stay organized, and listen, and we look forward to celebrating her successes together.  By using the incentive charts and sticker rewards with the fill-in-the-blank awards, it makes it easy to see what areas we are doing well in, what we still are working on, and where we should focus our energy next. 

One of the biggest benefits, though, has been that my husband can see, at a mere glance, how my day has gone when he gets home from work. One glance at the fridge and he can see whether breakfast went okay, how smoothly we transitioned from school, and whether we should even attempt to leave the house that evening as a family.  

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