Trying a New Incentive for the Kids

It all started when the kids were constantly fighting and not being nice to each other, I wanted to figure out a way to get them to be nice to each other.  I was tired of the constant “Mom, Kristin did this to me” and “He did it first.”  It was getting out of control.  Kristin has a friend from Mattias’ hockey practice, who has a Nintendo DSi, and she really wanted one, but it wasn’t like I was going to go right out and buy her whatever she wanted.  She needs to learn how to earn toys or other items and that she would have to work for it.  I thought this would be a great tool for both of the children.  I talked to Mattias and he of course wanted one too, so I told them I would work on a chore chart list and get back to them. 

It didn’t take long for me to come up with a list of things that I wanted them to do more often and have them be an incentive and things I was tired of to have as an incentive not to do.  I spent a lot of time cutting up little “point” Squares so we could put them in an envelope until they reach 100 then they would get to go get a Nintendo DSi and a chart to keep track of how many points they earn throughout the day, but I was still struggling because there was no “real” visual for the kids to see their progress.  Yeah, I cut up 200 squares that sat in an envelope and at first they were really excited once we got about a week in, not so much.

 I was talking to Kristin’s Preschool teacher & family friend Tracy and she mentioned marbles.  They were a good visual cue.  I went right out and purchased 200 marbles and 3 jars, one for each kid and one for the extra marbles.  I wrote their names on them with a special pen, drew a line to where the marbles need to be for 100 of them to be in their jar, and even let them decorate them, which they were thoroughly excited about.

Since we have moved to marbles the visual for their goal is much better and I have had a lot more progress.  I have even dropped the weekly chart and keeping track of how many marbles they should actually have and am now just waiting for them to get to their line so they can earn their Nintendo DSi.

Here is the list of good items that they do to gain a marble:

·         Brush their teeth (this use to be a long drawn out issue, that is no more)

·         Use fluoride after brushing teeth at night only

·         Clearing the table after they eat (after eating they always want to go play and they were leaving their mess for me to clean up, so I wanted to show a little bit of ownership of their meals)

·         Room clean before bed (Their bedrooms have been cleaner since, well Mattias’ has)

·         Homework complete (I use to battle Kristin on Preschool homework, so I added this in and it helped, this also helped with Mattias, he started reminding us or letting us know he had something he had to get done that night)

·         Read a book daily ~ 1 point daily (Both kids love to read and be read too, so I thought that this would be an extra incentive to actually read a book a day)

·         Put laundry in laundry basket or laundry room (Kristin loves to leave her socks everywhere, so I thought this might help with the missing socks…not so much, but other clothes yes.)

·         Take a bath at least every other day. On sports day’s bath is needed. (For some reason this is also mainly a Kristin battle, but sometimes a Mattias one too, so I thought I would increase the incentive for taking baths.)

·         Make bed (I just threw this one in here, because when I was a kid, my mom, use to bug me about this all the timeJ )

There is also a way to loose points and let me tell you it is very sad and painful to watch your sad & upset child have to pull a marble or marbles out of their jar and put back into the community jar.  This has only happened a few times, but they do cryL

Here is the list of what they can lose points for: (all of these are things that I was sooooo tired of having to deal with on a daily something hourly or by minute basis.  It has reduced a lot, since we put this whole system into place.)

·         Argue or fight with mom, dad or sibling (This was happening a lot and I was done, they were arguing about little things like not agreeing to play a game a certain way)

·         Fight- hit or kick sibling (this has happened on occasion; most recently Mattias hit Kristin, who in turn bite Mattias.  They lost a few marbles that day)

·         Get up after bed times, unless you have to go potty (Kristin loves getting up after bed time just to “tell me” something.  I was tired of her always coming out of her room.  This rule has seemed to work really well.)

·         Not listen to your mom or dad (This doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen.  When I tell the kids they can’t bring an item with them today or no, they can’t have candy right now and Kristin goes and gets it anyways. )

·         Complaining about not getting your way (This is Mattias for the most part, he complains about not having fun or if we don’t play a game his way.  Kristin does this too, but she is not ask bad)

      As you can see this list is a lot smaller thank goodness.  They haven’t completed their 100 marbles yet, but they are getting close.  I am eagerly waiting for them to complete this task and be just as excited to move on to the next item of choice.