Changing my grandson's behaviour??

Well, its been a busy time in the run up to Easter. I have officially become an old aged pensioner (or 'old fart') having had a birthday on the 8th April, and then 2 days later was the 44th wedding anniversary (as my father in law Reg would have said: "You don't get that for murder!"), so with all that and the forthcoming Easter, the blog has suffered (depending on your point of view, if you ever read it). Anyway, enough.

Seeing as we have been talking about behaviour, thought I would share a couple of things about my 5 year old grandson, which have happened in the last week or so. They have some relevance for the case we have been tracking, and again as Reg would have said: "All will be revealed".

First, my grandson has had some trouble finally getting in charge of his waterworks, and has been increasingly upset by the wet beds. In private discussion with my daughter in law, we decided to keep intervention simple. I recommended three things, keeping several ideas in reserve. First that they try to reduce late evening drinks. This is a logical move based on the physiology that there is maximum output from a drink at about 90 minutes, and most fluid passed by the kidney within about 150-180 minutes.

Next, I like ideas about operant conditioning, and no bedwetting occurs every night. So the idea as a parent is to wait until a dry night! Then you get very excited, applaud wildly, and make it absolutely clear to the child that you are pleased, and that he should be too. Finally, the child gets a small reward - anything from a star which gets stuck on a chart, to something negotiated and agreed with the child,  and that will not break the family budget! Anyway it has worked so far; so we may not have to use the other methods; just keep them up my sleeve.

The other story is about last Friday night. We were all having an Easter dinner and, about 8.30pm, my grandson is getting a bit bored. There he is behind me lying on a pathway made of small pebbles. First one got lobbed in my direction, then another. Not thrown with malice you understand; just boredom. So what do you do? Parenting and Grandparenting take so much patience don't they? There are of course many solutions, and I am sure you can think of lots. I just sat and waited. The little stones were not hurting, and I reckoned he would just get bored. Took 14 to get there, but he just got bored. Then he went meekly off to bed.

What would you have done?