My son has driven me to the insanity point. *sigh* He refuses to do his classwork at school, runs around the classroom like a banshee, and then some. His teacher and Roger and I have tried everything we can think of, to no avail. So last evening, I had to put my foot down, and hard. (Mind you, he is 7 years old. This might not work well with children under the age of 5.)

My son helped me pack every single toy in his bedroom into a Rubbermaid tote, leaving only his books and one stuffed puppy dog (Spike) in the room. I sat him down and explained to him that the new way of going about this is quite easy:

1. Every day that he does his classwork at school and follows rules and et cetera, he earns one type of toy back, aka his tote of Legos.

2. For every day after that which he is well-behaved at school, we add another type of toy back to the mix.

3. Every day that he acts out at school and is not behaving, he loses all of his toys again, and has to sit and read quietly afterschool instead of playing.

4. It's okay to have bad days, so long as we continue to follow the rules, even while we are grumpy-pants.

He was unhappy, but hopefully, it sunk in. When time-outs don't help, taking away tv time doesn't work, and you've gotten to the breaking point, this might seem heartless, but it's better than yelling and so on. If a child has to earn the right to do something, not only does it make them feel better about themselves, but it teaches them that working for something is healthy and good and right. It also eases the exasperation levels of Mom and Dad quite a bit!