The Good Choice Chain

I took D back to the ENT today, as he STILL has that nasty smelling nose. The ENT said its still crusty where his adenoids were, so thats taking its time healing. Where his tonsils were looks really good he said. He also said that D's adenoids were HUGE when he took them out, so it could be taking longer to heal. We're supposed to give it another few weeks to heal and I am NOT supposed to flush his nose out...OOPS! lol Oh well...

Now that you got the update, I have to share my idea. It worked great! This ENT's office is SO hard on D. Its very quiet in there, which drives him NUTS, understandably. The last two times we went, were rough. The last time we went there, I had to drag him out of the office into the hallway screaming TWICE for a talk and calm down time, he just could not hold it together. (This also included bringing small toys for him and a coloring book. They didn't last long). So this time, I tried to prepare more behaviorally. Before we went in, I gave D an old lanyard that I had in my purse (a keychain), and added 3 old grocery store cards that you put on keychains. I told him these were HIS cards, and this was his Good Choice Chain. With each infraction, he'd get a card taken off it. If he lost all 3, he lost the chain AND his sucker at the end of the visit, unless he earned it back. Two other rules for it: if he fought me, when it was time to take one off, he automatically lost all 3, and if he took off the lanyard, he lost all three (in hopes, he wouldn't take it off and throw it if he lost one...lol).

It worked well for the first time using it! He did end up losing all 3 (the wait was quite long in the waiting room), and started crying. I gave him a chance to earn them back by not talking at all and sitting completely still until they called his name (which I had a feeling was coming soon as we were the only ones left in the waiting room), so I knew it'd be an easy victory for him. He did great, earned em back, and was so proud of himself the rest of the time that I had no problems from him. So...YAY! A success. And yes, he got the sucker on the way out the door...lol

As soon as we got to the car, I got it back from him and told him it was just for visits like that (we do tend to have a lot of doc visits, between regular doc, ENT, neurologist, etc) so I now have something special to pull out for when I really need him to make happy choices.