When you work with foster children, you will learn that the traditional disciplining may not work for them, so you need to learn to be creative in this area. When a child has never played outside, had toys, watched cartoons or so many other things, then being grounded and not being able to do these things may not matter to him or her.

With some foster children, rewarding positive behavior can work, like being the one to choose the book I read to them, getting a special snack or drink, getting to go in the kitchen while I fix dinner and play, etc. For one of our foster daughters (nine years old), if she could get redirected without becoming hostile or at times aggressive, then she could do our family movie night that became every night (maybe thirty minutes of television) with ice cream. This was something that we made up for her. We normally do not do this every night, but we learned quickly that when it was family movie night, she wanted so much to be involved. My children loved this, ice cream every night. The children thought aliens had replaced their mom. This foster child only cared about being included in this family thing and she did work on her behavior after she learned I was serious.

The key is finding something that the child likes or enjoys doing. It could be that he or she has to stay at home with dad while everyone else goes out with mom, the loss of getting to be a helper, or loss of going to an activity that he or she participates in. With most children there are many different things that can get their attention; you just have to find what works best for that child.

Having a child do more chores can also be an effective tool when disciplining. When a child writes on your furniture, they can clean the bathroom after you write on the tub and tile with scrubbing bubbles. When they call me cuss names, then cleaning the toilet is a great punishment, since they are using a potty mouth. They hated this, so after having to do it a few times a day, they learn to stop calling me cuss names and I do get a sparkling bowl:)

Related article at adoption.com:
Behavior Control with a Behavior Plan for Foster Children