Todd and his family gave me permission to share this great news with you. Maybe you have a bright child like this. I do.

Christopher,

I saw you speak at the Agile 2009 event in Chicago.  During your presentation, you mentioned a technique for “catching” yourself doing something other than taking Responsibility and it stuck in my head.  So, I decided to see how it would work on my 9 year old son.

My son is bright kid and often, when the class slows down, he gets into trouble.  We have spoken to him many times about how silly it is that he is getting into trouble, especially for the things he is doing and what the longer impact could be – Not being invited to birthday parties, etc…

Two nights ago, I explained the technique I remembered from your presentation.  I told him to keep 4 quarters in his right pocket and each time he was about to do something silly, but he caught himself before doing it and didn’t folow through, he should move a quarter to his left pocket.  If he didn’t catch himself, the quarter would stay.  I explained that if he could just catch himself and come home with his left pocket full, we would be very proud of him!

Here is the message I got this morning from his 3rd grade teacher:

“I wanted to let you know that [son’s name] had a very good day yesterday.  I love the quarter idea that Todd came up with!  Even though [son’s name] did not have any pockets and real quarters, he used imaginary quarters and it worked!  I am looking forward to another great day!”

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I look forward to learning more and putting it to good use with my entire family.

Todd Kamens
Managing Partner, Certified Scrum Master
Guidance Technology, Inc.
Sharon, MA
USA

Thank you Todd for sharing your win. Congratulations to your son, and to his wonderful, loving, patient, and creative parents.

No child is too young to begin learning how  The Responsibility Process works in him or her. But first, you have to know and demonstrate it yourself.