Reward Jar - Your Experiences?

I tried this with my son when he was three ( we tried it for chores). We used M&M's but after a little while (like 2 weeks) he said that he didn't want the M&M's anymore.

Part of growing up is about learning how to conduct oneself and how to self regulate. If children are rewarded for good behavior they will behave only when they get something in return. Also when "points" are taken away, a true lesson has not been learned and responsibility has not been taken to remedy the undesirable action. The child just got punished. Sit down with your children, even the two year old and create a list of 5 things that are expected of the family, grown ups included. These will be the Family Rules. Have them be positive and about what is expected of them. (We use walking feet inside instead of NO RUNNING) If a child missteps have them take responsibility for the action. Your child hit? Have them get ice for the injured party and sit with them until they are better. If you are noticing poor behavior from your children try to see what is the cause. Are they frustrated? Tired? Hungry? Have not learned how to solve that type of conflict.

Keep teaching and modeling positive behavior to your children and that in itself will work wonders.

Have a great day,
B.
www.childandfamilycoaching.com
Because nothing is more important than family

Like Donna I do not believe a child should be rewarded for something that is expected of them. I also think this could set up a precedence for when they are older. I see it with my niece who must be rewarded to do ANYTHING.

I think the better system would be to set the expectations and have consequences if they are not met. This would better show a cause and effect relationship while you maintain control.

Rewards on a regular basis have always backfired for me. Occasional rewards I think are fine. I found that after a while my kids were asking well what to do we get if we do this.

Something I have done is to take away privileges for bad behavior. They are always forewarned about what will happen, (if its a behavior that doesn't need addressed immediately like hitting etc), after two or three warnings if they continue with their behavior and don't change it before the specific time frame, I quietly enforce the consequence. I let the consequence speak for itself if I am sure the child fully understands what they are doing wrong. They don't need a lecture if they know!

One example of this is that the shared areas, (living room etc), need to be picked up by the evening of all their toys. If it is not done they know that mummy gets to put whatever they left out in the basement. They then have to earn their stuff back one at a time by showing they follow this rule. (I am lenient if its been a busy day, didn't have time before bed etc).

However, this is not my main focus for encouraging good behavior. Like you I want to be positive. Praise works if you are specific. Generic praise becomes old and useless. I try to let daddy know at dinner time all the wonderful things the children did today. You could even have a list with all the good things that they did and daddy can see.

When my children do something good, I try to help them focus on how good they feel inside. If they do something wrong I try to help them realize that they are not happy, other people are unhappy and then we work together on the best way to correct the situation or start fresh. I try to help them see that our family is more fun when we follow the rules.

good luck

Mum of 4 almost 5 boys

we use a small jar and jellybeans. my son will be 3 in august and it has worked very well for us. he is a very well behaved little boy, a blessing really, but i wanted to reward him for good behavior and for helping his little brother. the trick with the jellybeans is that he gets to eat one and put one in the jar. he also throws one in the garbage when he makes a bad choice. he has filled it once and we went to dutch wonderland. it took a few weeks to fill it, so we had a large reward. when i taught first grade, i always use a reward system as well, it helps when they can see their progress. chuch e cheeses has printable reward charts and will give 10 tokens to the child when they turn it in. i think you have the right idea. be sure that they choose the reward and they may work harder to achieve the goal. we are using the jar now for potty traing, my fingers are crossed! good luck!

Hi!

We have been using this with our 3-year old and she loves it. We assign different points to treats and activities .

It has been working out great!

Good Luck!

We use the poker chip jar for our three year old. He loves it. After he collects a certain amount, he is able to "buy" something with his poker chips.
We do our best to give him the poker chips for behavior/actions that are not expected. For example, if he feeds the cats without being asked, he gets a poker chip. He also loses poker chips for bad choices.
It works well for us. We haven't seen any issues with him thinking he gets rewarded for everything. And he understands now that you have to work to get something you want.

As a former teacher (pre baby) I always used reward jars in my classroom. I would put marbles in a jar. This is the premise behind positive reinforcement. You might want to consider giving your other son the marble that you took from the misbehaving son. This reinforces his good behavior while teaching the other one that there are consequences to poor behavior. Some of the other mom's are concerned about them only behaving because they are getting something for it. The consequences and rewards should be made harder over time. Until eventually you may wean them from the reward jars all together. Your goal is to get the desired behavior and then wean them off the reward program. It's really no difference then giving a child allowance. As for teenagers, it most certainly works with them as well. Just remember that the reward needs to be something they are willing to work towards. Otherwise they won't change their behavior. Behavioral psychologist use this every day to help adults stop smoking, drinking, whatever is considered to be a negative behavior. Have fun with it. Your boys will love it and you'll love the results.

The reward jar is a great idea- the boys get to work together for a goal and experience the excitement of seeing the jar fill up. My suggestion would be to start the boys with a certain number of chips in the morning (5 or more) and see if they can keep them throughout the day. A chip is lost for misbehaving and what is left at the end of the day is added to the jar. This gives them a concrete reminder during the day, especially if they have a pants pocket to carry them in. Have fun!

Hi R.,

This idea may be great when the children are young, but what about when they get to be teen-agers?

I suggest that you set up some rules (guidelines) of what is expected of them. I would suggest sitting down and talking with them. Make a poster listing the expectations. Let them color as you work on the expectations.

The next step is to work with them by asking them what would be a consequence for misbehaving.

List those.

Children need to be taught to be good because it is the right thing to do, not because they will be rewarded.

Use your own thoughts on when to give them rewards and for what reason.

Good luck. Thanks for asking. Donn