Backfired!!

I thought I was Mrs. Cool Mom thinking I finally learned how to get my kids to "be good" while at a store. Its very simple.....I just put three little stickers on their hands. If they misbehave or wander off, I take a sticker off. If they have at least one sticker left when we leave they are suppose to be able to get a treat on the way out or some other reward. I haven't even had to buy them anything b/c the thrill of the stickers has been enough! I've been doing this for a couple weeks and it works! Well, I should say it worked! This week I had Erik, Annika, and Isabel with me and we had to pick up a few things while Alaina was at gymnastics. Before getting out of the van we got the stickers out and they got to pick which color smiley faces they wanted. We went over the ground rules one more time as we always do before entering a public place (this is basically for Annika who tends to forget)! We were doing good trying to find what we needed......then Annika started running up and down the aisle touching all the food boxes on the way down! I called her back and told her I was going to have to take a sticker b/c la dee da......well, I've never had to take a sticker from any child before! She started to cry because she only had two and she wanted three.....she cried and cried and obviously my whole plan was not working! A few aisles down I finally had to give her the sticker back.....then she was fine. I guess she didn't quite understand the point of this exercise!!

I do need to say that if you are looking for a way to get your kids to stay close, it works great for Erik and Alaina.......I'll have to figure something out for Annika!