Soup Kitchen

Here is a description of Soup Kitchen. Marythemom requested a description and I'd be more than happy to do that. It's something that Penelope's Attachment Therapists had shared with me not too long after Penelope started AT. I know it can be controversial and I didn't like the idea when I first heard about it, but I'm telling you, it works!
Here is the concept. A child's job is to be a contributing part of the family. Their contributions are to listen and be pleasant to be around, do chores, and to learn by going to school. Effort. As a child, essentially they are "working" for the family. Family being "The Co." As an employee, of The Co. you must do your job or you will get fired. If you get fired, you won't have any money to buy food. If you don't have money to buy food, where will you get food at? The Soup Kitchen.
So, if Penelope stops working hard at her job, she gets fired and will be on Soup Kitchen until she demonstrates she is a contributing part of the family. She is not kicked out of the family by any means, but will not get the same priviledges as the rest of the family by getting to eat regular food.
She has to eat Soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner until she demonstrates she is working hard again. She can eat as much soup as she wants whenever she wants it. It's not about starving her at all. You do it with love and understanding that it's hard to give up being the boss, but when you grow up, and try to be the boss, you will probably lose your job and then what? Better to learn that less now while she is young. It's very important in these kids.
It's all about being the boss, trying to be in control and feeding into entitlement or victim issues, learned helplessness and overall the child's self-fullfilling prophecies that they can't do anything and won't become somebody.
Even though Penelope struggles at doing all that she is suppose to do to get off Soup Kitchen, having already let go some of the control has made her more agreeable, fun to be around, able to deal with stressors a lot better, and just overall happier.
The issue I'm running in to is that there is too much TV watching in this house and she struggles with that thing a lot of kids do - gets hooked on watching TV and doesn't want to do anything else. But we have lots of soup. We will see. She has stopped trying to hold herself hostage as an ultimatum, she just needs to find that inner strength to get it done. It's there, it's just below the surface. It will happen soon.