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Early Reward Methods

Okay, let me start by saying I am a firm believer children need to be taught to do something because it is the right thing to do or what is expected of them, not because they want a reward. That being said, rewarding children for a job well done gives everyone a feeling of satisfaction and is a great tool for training your children. For older children, they speak one language...GREEN. LOL! But when the girls were younger, back before they had much exposure to and concepts of money, I found other creative ways to reward my children for a job well done and help ease them into money.

 

Good Deed Bucket

Their first reward system was the Good Deed Bucket. This was a bin I had picked up at the dollar store and stored on top of my fridge. Everytime the girls would have a birthday party I would dump any excess party favors in here. Always end up with odd numbers of those little things, so why not put 'em to good use? Whenever I noticed a particulary good deed or felt a child merited an award they got to select a prize from this bucket. As they got older they began to realize these were toys they've already had..at their parties! Sometimes this was a good thing because they'd find things they wanted another of, but usually it meant it was old hat.

 

Mommy Coupons

CLICK HERE and scroll down for printable mommy and daddy coupons!

At this point we moved onto more of a monetary sytem, but not quite american dollars. I made up coupons for my children. I made them nice, and that way when the kids redeemed them, I could use those same coupons to hand out again. These coupons could be exchanged for t.v. time, 1 on 1 play time with a parent of their choosing, a special treat, helping with dinner, picking what would be for dinner, and rewards of that nature.

 

The Brownie Shoppe

Ever growing, my kids craved something of monetary value they could exchange for items of their choosing and the Brownie Shoppe was born. I printed up many small tokens in denominations of 1, 2, 5, and 10 brownie points and would reward them to the children. Once a month or so I would visit the dollar store and spend $5-$10 on new items for the brownie shop and tag them with little "brownie" prices. The types of items found in the brownie shop (which was actually bin, also purchased from the dollar store) were activity and coloring books, character themed workbooks, reading books, small toys, puzzles, jump ropes, and foam footballs. Everything in it would get either their imagination, their mind, or their body moving around and working! The kids absolutely loved the Brownie shoppe, and they were so proud of their ability to save up and purchase items they spied and waited for.

 

Allowence

From this they graduated to a regular allowence, and we give them $10 each every 2 weeks on Friday, plus a $5 "bonus" to the kid who displayed the best attitude, and was the most helpful around the house. There have been times where kids shared the bonus, and there have been weeks where Daddy said no body gets the bonus because of their 'tudes. In fact, this past week, the kid who won the bonus actually did the least amount of helping, but she also got in trouble the least so she won on that merit. I think these systems are successful in part because they gradually work a child up to handling real money, and they teach them the value first of taking care of their coupons and brownie points. It's not as big of a deal if a 4 year old loses a brownie point 3 times in one day and cries their eyes out for a new one as it is if they lose a $1 or a $5 over and over. It just makes sense to me, but maybe that's just me! Either way, my children are excellent at saving their money and they rarely ever suffer from buyers remorse. They work very hard for their money helping me around the house and keeping their bedrooms tidy, they don't want to blow it on something silly. And that's the second reason this method works so well, the child is raised up to not only earn their allowence, but appreciate it as well.

 

The girls are turning 12, 10, and 10 this year and even though they want their cold hard cash, I've recently taken to rewarding them with coupons again. I got these great booklets of "good job" tickets that have 2 pieces so I can include each ticket they win in a raffle at the end of the month for an extra special goodie, and on the back of each one I write it up like a coupon, but for something they'd be into as big kids. Staying up 20 minutes past bedtime on the weekend is a big hit, and so is 15 extra minutes on the computer. Our oldest's favorite so far was for 1 and 1/2 lbs of apples. Not even kidding. Kid will eat apples till she pukes if I let her. (Update - It's been 1 month since re-adding coupons and the older children are loving it! They are all amped up for the first raffle, and all have done many good deeds through out the month such as helping with each others chores, doing extra chores, helping baby sister, and so on to earn those chances in the raffle! The coupons have also been a huge hit, they've been saving and redeeming them carefully with much planning on when to use each one! It's adorable.)

 

The most important thing, in this humble mommy's opinion, is just like any other aspect of parenting...that you get down to their level and work with them sincerely at their pace. As always, don't expect too much of them, especially when it comes to chores. And, don't be afraid to take a step back! They are children. Think back to when you were their age and how much you hated chores! ;)

 

 

Last Note - I've talked with several mom's who don't do chores for their children. Rather, they spend the rest of their day after work cramming in all the housework and cooking dinner. I'm not here to judge. But, I will say, if you give your children the skills to self-discipline now and accept cleaning as a reality of life you are preparing them for a much brighter future, and will also be making your near-future much more pleasant as well. It does take time and effort to train children to clean and have a positive attitude about their responsibilities (we call them "priorities") but it is effort that is worth it, because it does have a large and direct impact on their futures. Thank you for your time.