Rewarding Behavior
I think every parent has gone through a plethora of child-rearing books to find that magic tool to help your child have the best behavior. If you have found it, please let me know. I could use it on my 2 year old! We have tried everything, but recently have come across a new tool. Our oldest child is now in kindergarten and his teacher has a system for their behavior based on stars and checks. For a good day, you receive a green star. A bad day brings you a yellow check, then an orange check and then a red check. Fortunately since the beginning of school, we’ve only had two yellow checks. She rewards them at the end of the month if they earn all green stars.
We told our son that if he earned a month’s worth, he could have a reward at home as well. His two yellow checks were one in August and one in September, so he was elated when October came and he earned a whole month’s worth of green stars. We gave him some choices for his reward and he chose to take the whole family bowling. It’s on the calendar to do this weekend and we are all excited. I loved his teacher’s approach to honing in on the positive behavior. By doing so, you take the focus off any bad choices they may be thinking of making and focus their energy on being good and earning that coveted green star!
In early September our daughter started asking me if she could have a green star too. She had heard our son talking about his and wanted her own. She didn’t really know what it meant, but she knew he was working on it and wanted to do the same. What a genius thought! Who would have thought that the 2 year old would come up with the idea to implement the star system at home?! We have a calendar on the wall in the kitchen that we use for our stars at home. Each night the kids go in the kitchen with me and we talk about our day and the choices we’ve made and we write down what they’ve earned. I will admit, our little girl gets lots of yellow checks, but she is so excited when she gets a green star. Oftentimes now when she knows she’s made a bad choice, she’ll cry and say she wants her green star!
You can use whatever system you like. The point is to simply focus on the good behavior. The more energy you put into acknowledging the good things your children are doing, the more excited they will be to keep up the good work. It’s so easy to zero in on the bad behavior, but that only brings them down emotionally. Try using simple daily rewards that aren’t food and don’t cost a thing like the stars. A cheap sticker works well too. The last thing you want to teach your child is to reward themselves with food or to expect big rewards every time they make a good choice. Make a point to talk to them about the personal satisfaction of doing well, so they understand that they don’t need a physical reward every time. Give it a try and find out which system your children respond to the best. I think the stars stuck so well for us because our son thinks so highly of his teacher, that anything she suggests is gold to him. Old fashioned trial and error is always the best!
