Getting our money's worth...

Maybe it's because we've tried other things with Matthew before, or maybe it's because we really over-extended ourselves financially for this course, (for both of us attending the seminar and everything that went along with it), but we are still eating, sleeping and breathing Intercept and are very determined to keep the positive changes alive so that they become just the way Matt is now. I keep thinking how easy it was on course, in a sense, because the consequences were so natural, and very black and white. At home, we live in the gray.

Matt was really mad at first because we told him that we were going back to our point system. This was something I found online last year. It's a software program that you download and customize. It's a daily tally of earning points for expected behaviors and losing points for negative behaviors. At the end of the week, the points are assessed and calculated to determine allowance and privileges. It's called Easy Child and it has really worked for us. Here's the link: http://www.easychild.com/index.htm. A few months before OB, Matt had sunk so far that we took the point system AWAY, if you can believe that. Anyway, now that he's back, we re-designed it and came up with the expected behaviors together, which was in itself a big change, since before it was whatever we handed down. He came up with some really insightful things that he wanted to work on, like "taking liberties", which means that if he doesn't have EXPLICIT permission, he doesn't have permission. Sounds easy, but Matt was the King of slipping under the radar.

We have established Evening Meetings as part of our dinner routine. We do Ownerships, CFRs and Appreciations and we all set goals for the next day. This has been really helpful for me, too, I can't believe how productive I've been! Matt hasn't been happy the times I've called him out on his behavior in the moment, but has said that he's generally so much happier and a LOT happier with our relationship. He is being very careful to remain trustworthy, too.

That's all for now. Please share what's working for you!
Jen

PS-If you have an online photo album of your pictures, I'd love to see them!