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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi OP. I’m a longtime former teacher and now a principal. I help teachers across a wide range of age develop incentive/behavior plans. They can be very powerful, and they can fail quickly.

First, what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Is there a specific behavior you’re trying to eliminate, ie whining, leaving toys out.

Or are you trying to get them to follow a routine at bedtime or wake-up?

You posted that you were trying to incentivize “good behavior.” That’s way too fuzzy and will end in failure. What exactly is “good behavior?” The more clarity you have about the behavior and the less subjectivity needed to determine if happened, the better.

-Focus on the 1-3 behaviors you want to see or eliminate. I like to set up the chart in yes/no prompts. Either you did it or you didn’t. Example:
[i]My toys were put away by 8pm with only one reminder. yes or no 
I used kind, caring words when talking to my brother today. Yes or no. [/i]
-Get buy-in from kids by offering choice on what the reward is. 
-Make sure the reward is not too far away. If I’m 6 and have to wait a week for my reward, it might not work for me. Perhaps a small sticker is earned for each “yes” action daily, and an accumulated 10 stickers earns a prize. This allows for mistakes to happen and doesn’t blow it for the week. 
-As someone else noted, what happens if one kid meets the expectation and the other doesn’t? 
-And finally, I really appreciate what another poster noted about family movie not being a reward but just something you all should be doing together. You should be having a regularly scheduled family fun dinner or movie night or game night.

Good luck. [/quote]

I'm another teacher and I agree with this.

Rewards should be for very specific behaviors, not for "good behavior".

Rewards that you lose, like a movie night that you don't get if you don't get all your stars by Thursday, or tokens that are won and lost, almost never work.  Instead you want a reward that either happens as soon as you earn it (e.g. when you get 5 stars you get to . . . ) or where things grow (e.g. each time you . . . you can earn a 5 extra minutes.  On Friday, you can stay up that many minutes late.

Rewards shouldn't be attention from you.  Kids who are struggling need more, not less, attention.  Control or choice is a great elementary school reward.  I once told my kids that whoever came first when I called them for dinner got the privilege of choosing where everyone sat at the table, as demonstrated by putting "their" plate and utensils there (yes, I bribed my kids to come to dinner on time with the privilege of being allowed to set the table, and it worked on my youngest.  My oldest, who didn't have trouble coming on time and didn't want to set the table, showed up a minute late every time).  Choosing something for their lunch box can be another great cost free thing, since you are already buying things for their lunch box.

Rewards that kids can work for together can work for kids, if the problem is in the interaction.  So, work together to earn 10 stars for both doing your HW?  That doesn't work.  We'll make popsicles for dessert if younger brother doesn't whine, when he's reacting to big brother teasing?  Works great because it incentivizes younger brother not to overreact/tattle and older brother not to tease.  [/quote]

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