Reward Board Revisited

The emails have been pouring in (okay, there were three), and I decided to take a minute to clarify a few things about the Reward Board.

I base earning coins on two things. Number one, if Kaden obeys one of the house rules, he gets a coin. For example, if he obeys the first time when I ask him to do something, he gets a coin. If he uses kind words with me or Delaney, he gets a coin. I decided early on that I had to be as willing to see the positive and reward it as I was to jump on the negative and penalize him.

Number two, if Kaden does something I deem positive, he earns a coin. Kaden's very loving with Delaney and is generally a great sharer, so I try to emphasize his strong points by rewarding him with coins when I catch him being sweet to her. He's also pretty good at helping around the house, like scrubbing the tub with shampoo (!) when I'm cleaning or running the handvac. He gets coins for stuff like that b/c I want him to feel good about being part of the team effort that is family. Of course not everything fits into the rules we have listed, but a lot of things fall under nice words or nice hands & feet. We also reward him with a coin for good behavior when we're out and about -- church, the grocery store, etc.

Josh and I decided not to have an elaborate system of points and degrees of rewards. Everything is worth one coin, whether good or bad. I suppose the time could come where Kaden would do something so fantastic that it would deserve two coins, but we haven't had that come up yet. :-)

One thing I'm not sure what to do with yet is when losing one coin doesn't cause Kaden to amend his behavior. Losing one coin works 98% of the time, but there are occasionally times where he just gets it in his head that he's going to be naughty regardless of coins or rewards. In that case, I usually send him to his room to cool down so I don't rifle through all of his coins for one infraction.

Oh, and for Holly B. -- we super-glued magnets on the back of nickels. They've worked like a charm!

If any of you implement this in your home, let me know how it goes. I hope our Reward Board has inspired you!