How many of us would get up and go to work every day if we weren’t getting paid? I hear some laughing out there! Children are no different than we are, while we may be motivated by money, recognition and a multitude of other things that we like, children too like to feel that they’ve done a good job, feel important and get to have and do things that they like.
Before teaching a child new skills or attempting to change their behaviours, we should do an inventory of what motivates them. Most parents can list off a couple of things that their child really likes but if you can make a detailed list of what they enjoy then you’ve got more ammunition in your back pocket.
Once we have a list of these reinforcing items or activities we can use them to increase desired actions or skills through a reward system. While it may be appropriate to give a toddler a goldfish cracker every time you catch them playing nicely with others, for older children you don’t want to be handing over a brand new video game every day so that it where a reward chart can come in handy. If you Google ‘reward chart’ you will find many that you can print out and use or you can make your own with a piece of paper or a white board which allows you to reuse it over and over.
The idea of a reward chart is that a child receives stickers or check marks for achieving a desired behaviour. Many parents use this for toilet training but really it can be used for many things from doing homework and chores to learning how to swim. Below are examples of different ways to use a reward chart. Remember not to put everything on a child’s reward chart. It’s not always an easy task to teach our children that as part of a family certain things should be done just to help out, but the earlier they learn this, the better. If Saturday is cleaning day, then have the child help out and give them a big Thank You but that’s it. Let them see how happy you are that the house is clean and what that means…i.e. that there’s room to play on the floor, that now you can have company over or that Mom and Dad now has free time to spend with them.
It’s always good to write down what the child is working for or even put a picture of what it is on the reward board. I’ve included some examples of creative and inexpensive rewards below if you’re having trouble of thinking of more than the obvious video games, candy and money.
A few things to remember about rewarding are that you should have a number of different items or activities to offer so that your child doesn’t get tired of the same thing. Also, the list of rewards should be things that your child doesn’t have free access to. This means that a goldfish cracker isn’t rewarding if the child can go to the pantry and help themselves to them or if they eat them for a snack every day. A trip to Grandma’s may not be rewarding either if she is going to show up the day before and take them out on the town. I knew of a parent whose son loved ‘moon sand’ so she kept a bin of it with toys up high in her kitchen and he only got it when she was teaching him a new skill like toilet training. She had that child toilet trained in 2 days flat and he was diagnosed with autism!
The final thing to remember about rewards is that nothing should be more powerful than social praise. Remember that whenever your child gets a tangible reward, they should also get a social reward (high five, hug, pat on the back, “great job!” excitement). The last thing we want to do is raise a child that expects to receive something every time he/she does a good job but at the same time we also want to use their motivation to our advantage J
Rewards
- Day at the beach
- Picnic at the park
- Trip to the library
- Splash pad or public swimming pool
- Petting zoo
- Play date/ sleepover
- Board game or movie night
- Special outing by themselves with Mom or Dad (this can be quite appealing to those with siblings!)
- Part of a collection (train set, cards, etc.)
- Eating out/ making homemade pizzas/ favourite meal
- Having a spa day at home (doing nails, hair, etc.)
- Planting a flower or vegetable garden
Daily Routine Chart
ACTIVITY | M | T | W | Th | F | S | S | 25 stickers =REWARD |
Brushed teeth independently | ||||||||
Brought home agenda from school | ||||||||
Helped empty the dishwasher | ||||||||
Did 15 minutes of homework | ||||||||
Was in bed at 8 pm | ||||||||
Total points |
Homework Chart
For Every 5 Minutes of Homework Completed 5 Minutes of Staying up is earned
5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 |
Learning to Swim
Played in the water | Put face in the water | Learned to Blow Bubbles | Floated on belly with help | Floated on belly by self | Kicked feet with a flutter board | Front crawl with flotation device | Front crawl without a flotation device | REWARD for learning to swim! |
A Day at Canada’s Wonderland! |
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