What are the Three Qualities of an A+ child?

We tell our children that they need to be A+ kids, and there are only three things they have to do to accomplish this. These three things are to be respectful, responsible, and fun to be around. When you think about it, pretty much any behavior can fall in these three areas, and therefore if they aren’t A+ kids then you can name the category pretty easily.
Want some examples? We have family night every Saturday night, and on one family night much to my children’s chagrin we filled out a big poster board with examples of the three categories. Here are some of the things they came up with:
Respectful

• Saying “Yes, Mom” and “Yes, Dad”
• Leave other people’s things alone
• Keep your word
• Be kind

Responsible

• Do your chores without being asked
• Fast and snappy and right the first time
• Clean up after ourselves
• Ask for help
• Be honest
• Take care of feelings in an OK manner

Fun to be around

• Don’t call names
• Give people a chance
• Brush teeth
• Listen and don’t interrupt
• Don’t swear
• Good manners

In addition, we also came up with a list of “feeling words”, which we’ve discovered our kids have difficulty using. We’ve been trying to teach them how to tell each other (or us) how something makes them feel, instead of just saying “You’re a jerk” or “I hate you”. Some of the feeling words they came up with were:

• Embarrassed
• Angry
• Happy
• Lonely
• Sad

So, if you’re really looking for something fun to do on a Saturday night, make an “A+ Child” poster of your own!
Looking for parenting help?
One tool that we’ve used is the Total Transformation program by James Lehman. It’s given us a lot of solid, common sense ideas for parenting our challenging children.