Right from late night television binge watching to having no fixed routine for bathing, meal times, physical activity, whatsoever. And getting dressed up in decent, presentable clothes has been long forgotten. Pyjamas are the new ripped jeans and hair goals have changed to “messy hair, who cares?”

Umm, well honestly your kids are not to be blamed here. Children need to be led by example and here, forget about following a routine, adults are equally or even far more out of order. Aren’t we ? Or at least some of us are.

Although there are a lot of things to enjoy in these crazy times, many unhealthy patterns have also emerged. We as parents need to take charge and apply some regulations to unproductive habits. A little bit of alterations will definitely help us manage to set the right example and help our children get some order in life.

COLOUR CODING THE DAY

So here is the brilliant idea. And I can assure that it’s going to work.

I have tried and tested this easy recipe. And trust me the result is delicious!

This is basically a pie chart. The circle represents the day. And the 24 slices represent 24 hours of a day.

This is a colour code chart. It can be edited according to your family needs. Some may want to add exercise or sports instead of creativity time. Anything that suits you, as long as it’s productive.

The idea is to fill the colours in the Self Regulation chart according to the way you have spent your day. The target should be to have more of Green-Blue-Orange-purple slices and less of Red-Yellow-Indigo slices.

I have extracted this Self Regulation theory from one of my CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) class, where we studied that a lot of behavioural issues can be corrected with the help of self management. CBT is a proven science and it has proven to be helpful in depression, anxiety and many other social-emotional problems.

Albert Ellis is known as the father of cognitive-behavioral therapy and founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). To quote him in this respect, “Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world”

So with the belief that with the help of this Pie-Chart/Self-Regulation exercise, which is both rational and positive, let’s get closer to getting the result that we want. A disciplined and productive family!

Now, once your pie chart print out and colour code is ready, you can move on to the part where you have to decide how to motivate children and family members to participate effectively.

You must set some kind of a reward system, which can be given on a weekly basis. The reward can differ according to the likes and desires of your family. I kept monetary rewards, Food items that I was limiting during lockdown for health reasons, they fit in just perfectly in my reward list because it eliminated the anger and frustration the children had towards me, now they could earn it and it proved to be a great motivating factor.

So basically whatever fits best in your family system as a reward can be kept, it’s totally up to you.

You can put up these charts in a common area so that everyone plays fair and there is no room for any kind of manipulation.

You will realise that with each week passing, the colours will start trending towards the good habit zone. And the healthy competition among family members will increase bonding and love.

You can thank me later for this.

You are welcome 😉