REWARDS THAT WORK
If “rewards” or “bribes” offend the moralist in you, call them motivators. Gradually your child will get used to the good feelings that come from good behavior. Once the feelings themselves become motivators, the need for rewards will lessen. Here are some reward systems that have worked well both in my home and office.
¦ Interactive charts. It’s one thing to devise a list of desir able behaviors and put a check beside each when a child complies; it’s another to make the checking-off an in teresting activity in itself. Kids love stickers, so buy special ones and let your child put them on a chart. Or have your child draw a pic ture of something she wants. Outline the picture with dots about an inch apart. Each time she displays a desired behavior (says “excuse me” when she leaves the dinner table or picks up her toys ), let her draw a line from one dot to another. When she has completely outlined her prize, she collects it.
¦ Accentuate both the posi tive and the negative. If your youngster misbehaves, place a sad-face sticker on the chart. If he’s compliant, put on a happy-face sticker. If the happy faces outnumber the sad ones at week’s end, your child gets a reward he’s cho sen beforehand.
¦ Give-and-take tactics. Each time your child cooperates, give him a dime to put in a clear jar. When you get a grumble, have him take one out. He’ll soon be inspired by the depth of the dimes and think twice before whining. Or make up a stack of “tick ets” on index cards or slips of paper. Give your child a few free tickets at the begin ning of the day with the un derstanding that she can earn more each time she be haves but will lose a ticket for nagging or being disobe dient. At the end of the week, reward her with a special treat that reflects the number of tickets she has collected. One mom who tried the tick et system appreciated how it helped her see the good in her child. “I found myself saying, ‘I liked how coopera tive you were this morning,’ or, ‘Thank you for going to bed when I asked you to.’”
¦ Yes days and no days. The mother of a 5-year-old boy confided one day, “I want to enjoy being a parent, but my son won’t cooperate when I ask him to do the simplest things.” I advised her to tell the boy, “I want to be a hap py mom. To help me, we’re going to make a yes-and-no chart. Every time I ask you to do something and you say, ‘Yes, Mom,’ we’ll mark it on the chart; if you say no, we’ll mark that too. On the days you say yes more than no, we’ll do something special together.” Soon her son real ized that a happy mom was much more fun to be with than a cranky one.
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