Child Behavior Modification - The Reward Bucks System
Overview Child behavior modification is not easy.
As parents, we want our children to do the things that keep them safe and healthy.
If you have a child that has little to no interest in doing physical activities like sports, walking, riding a bike, etc.
, then it can be difficult for the child to maintain weight control and to stay healthy.
Ideally you will find some activity the child likes to do.
However, you may want to employ some type of reward system to get things kick-started.
Here one such system is presented: "The Reward Bucks System.
" Perhaps even more effectively, this system can also be used as an overall behavior modification approach for your child.
Clearly the basic idea is to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior.
And most parents are doing this all the time - although the overwhelming tendency is to do more punishing than rewarding.
But since rewarding is much more fun for everyone involved, and less likely to create conflict and strife in your family than constant punishment, perhaps we should all focus more on the reward side of the equation.
We need to "catch our kids being good" and reinforce that behavior, maybe even more so than always trying to "catch them being bad.
" For this purpose, the Reward Bucks System was developed to help parents focus more on rewards and less on punishment.
Goal Life, for both adults and children, consists of rewards and punishment.
Do something good, you get a reward; do something bad, you get punished.
It doesn't always work out that way, as we all know, but that is at least how it is supposed to work (and I think generally, it does work that way).
And it is good to reinforce this concept with our children as early as we can, since it will certainly be in effect as soon as they enter school, if not earlier.
Like many things in life, this concept is best if taught by the parents as soon as the child is developmentally ready.
This depends on the child, but most children begin to be able to grasp this concept very well by age 5.
The opposite of this approach would be teaching them that even when they are bad they can still be rewarded, and that there is no benefit to being good.
Based on the behavior of some children, and even some adults, it seems like some kids are being raised that way.
But I digress...
Our Background As a parent, obviously you can employ whatever reward and punishment system you feel is appropriate for your children.
Each parent has their own philosophy and each child is different.
I am not a psychologist, child behavioral specialist, or social worker, so from a certified professional perspective, I am not giving "expert advice" here.
That said, I have been parenting for about ten years and have learned a few things about kids and how to motivate them.
Also, my wife, who helped develop this program, has been a special education teacher for over five years and has degrees in psychology and education.
In fact, this program has been implemented quite successfully with children who have special challenges, including ADHD.
All of this knowledge, testing and experience has gone into the creation of this program.
The Program In the package we created, there are sheets of $1, $5, $10, and $20.
Each sheet has twelve bills.
In this way, we can print a sheet of any denomination needed and then cut out the individual dollars (I use a large paper cutter).
We always feel like the Federal Reserve when we do this! We give the kids one reward dollar for "doing one of their jobs" (as we call them).
In the morning (before school), if they get dressed, brush their teeth, make their bed, and get down to the breakfast table by a certain time, they get $1.
If they get their shoes on and are ready to leave on time they get another $1.
If they are quiet with no fighting in the car on the way to and from school, they get another reward dollar.
And so on.
If they don't do what they are supposed to do, they don't get the reward dollar.
Sometimes, we even take away reward dollars when they are being particularly difficult or belligerent.
Obviously we move to more severe penalties when warranted (grounding, loss of privileges, etc.
) - as these actions are outside of the Reward Bucks program, which is, well, primarily a reward program for being good.
We use a "Reward Box" filled with small, fairly inexpensive toys that we know they really like, that they can "buy" with their Reward Bucks.
We put "price tags" on the items to indicate how many reward bucks it will take to buy each one.
We use a general rule of thumb for pricing of 10 Reward Dollars for every $1 of real cost to buy it (thus the "exchange value" of a Reward Buck is about 10 cents).
We then put the Reward Box where the kids can easily look at the items - but we make sure that they can't sit there and play with them.
The response with our kids was great.
The kids love the look and feel of this money! They frequently ask to turn in lower denominations for the larger notes (e.
g.
five ones for a five) because they like having the bigger notes with the different pictures on them.
This is all part of the fun of the program and also helps them tremendously with general math and money skills (even though they don't recognize that they are learning!).
Make sure your kids fully understand all the rules and be consistent in terms of how you apply it; otherwise the system may cause extra "drama," which you obviously don't want.
Again, try to use it to reinforce good behavior more than as a penalty for bad behavior.
Try to make it fun! Our kids love it and respond well to this program - yours probably will too.
Creating the Currency You can design, edit, refine, and assemble sheets of "reward bucks" using your own computer and favorite graphic-editing software.
You can be as creative as you'd like! You can also design the dollars so that they appeal specifically for your child and what they are into.
The ones we designed are somewhat generic, yet appealing enough so that most kids, including ours, will like them.
It may take several hours to create the perfect "bucks.
" As an alternative, you can save yourself the time and use what we already designed.
For a very small fee, you can download our PDF sheets and print as many pages of each currency as you'd like, on your own printer, whenever you'd like.
Either way, we wish you the best of luck using the Reward Bucks System!
As parents, we want our children to do the things that keep them safe and healthy.
If you have a child that has little to no interest in doing physical activities like sports, walking, riding a bike, etc.
, then it can be difficult for the child to maintain weight control and to stay healthy.
Ideally you will find some activity the child likes to do.
However, you may want to employ some type of reward system to get things kick-started.
Here one such system is presented: "The Reward Bucks System.
" Perhaps even more effectively, this system can also be used as an overall behavior modification approach for your child.
Clearly the basic idea is to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior.
And most parents are doing this all the time - although the overwhelming tendency is to do more punishing than rewarding.
But since rewarding is much more fun for everyone involved, and less likely to create conflict and strife in your family than constant punishment, perhaps we should all focus more on the reward side of the equation.
We need to "catch our kids being good" and reinforce that behavior, maybe even more so than always trying to "catch them being bad.
" For this purpose, the Reward Bucks System was developed to help parents focus more on rewards and less on punishment.
Goal Life, for both adults and children, consists of rewards and punishment.
Do something good, you get a reward; do something bad, you get punished.
It doesn't always work out that way, as we all know, but that is at least how it is supposed to work (and I think generally, it does work that way).
And it is good to reinforce this concept with our children as early as we can, since it will certainly be in effect as soon as they enter school, if not earlier.
Like many things in life, this concept is best if taught by the parents as soon as the child is developmentally ready.
This depends on the child, but most children begin to be able to grasp this concept very well by age 5.
The opposite of this approach would be teaching them that even when they are bad they can still be rewarded, and that there is no benefit to being good.
Based on the behavior of some children, and even some adults, it seems like some kids are being raised that way.
But I digress...
Our Background As a parent, obviously you can employ whatever reward and punishment system you feel is appropriate for your children.
Each parent has their own philosophy and each child is different.
I am not a psychologist, child behavioral specialist, or social worker, so from a certified professional perspective, I am not giving "expert advice" here.
That said, I have been parenting for about ten years and have learned a few things about kids and how to motivate them.
Also, my wife, who helped develop this program, has been a special education teacher for over five years and has degrees in psychology and education.
In fact, this program has been implemented quite successfully with children who have special challenges, including ADHD.
All of this knowledge, testing and experience has gone into the creation of this program.
The Program In the package we created, there are sheets of $1, $5, $10, and $20.
Each sheet has twelve bills.
In this way, we can print a sheet of any denomination needed and then cut out the individual dollars (I use a large paper cutter).
We always feel like the Federal Reserve when we do this! We give the kids one reward dollar for "doing one of their jobs" (as we call them).
In the morning (before school), if they get dressed, brush their teeth, make their bed, and get down to the breakfast table by a certain time, they get $1.
If they get their shoes on and are ready to leave on time they get another $1.
If they are quiet with no fighting in the car on the way to and from school, they get another reward dollar.
And so on.
If they don't do what they are supposed to do, they don't get the reward dollar.
Sometimes, we even take away reward dollars when they are being particularly difficult or belligerent.
Obviously we move to more severe penalties when warranted (grounding, loss of privileges, etc.
) - as these actions are outside of the Reward Bucks program, which is, well, primarily a reward program for being good.
We use a "Reward Box" filled with small, fairly inexpensive toys that we know they really like, that they can "buy" with their Reward Bucks.
We put "price tags" on the items to indicate how many reward bucks it will take to buy each one.
We use a general rule of thumb for pricing of 10 Reward Dollars for every $1 of real cost to buy it (thus the "exchange value" of a Reward Buck is about 10 cents).
We then put the Reward Box where the kids can easily look at the items - but we make sure that they can't sit there and play with them.
The response with our kids was great.
The kids love the look and feel of this money! They frequently ask to turn in lower denominations for the larger notes (e.
g.
five ones for a five) because they like having the bigger notes with the different pictures on them.
This is all part of the fun of the program and also helps them tremendously with general math and money skills (even though they don't recognize that they are learning!).
Make sure your kids fully understand all the rules and be consistent in terms of how you apply it; otherwise the system may cause extra "drama," which you obviously don't want.
Again, try to use it to reinforce good behavior more than as a penalty for bad behavior.
Try to make it fun! Our kids love it and respond well to this program - yours probably will too.
Creating the Currency You can design, edit, refine, and assemble sheets of "reward bucks" using your own computer and favorite graphic-editing software.
You can be as creative as you'd like! You can also design the dollars so that they appeal specifically for your child and what they are into.
The ones we designed are somewhat generic, yet appealing enough so that most kids, including ours, will like them.
It may take several hours to create the perfect "bucks.
" As an alternative, you can save yourself the time and use what we already designed.
For a very small fee, you can download our PDF sheets and print as many pages of each currency as you'd like, on your own printer, whenever you'd like.
Either way, we wish you the best of luck using the Reward Bucks System!
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