Setting Up a Reward System for Your Child

How do you teach kids to behave in ways that you want them to behave, and have good habits? It's not that we want to get kids to be little robots who do exactly what we would have them do in any given situation. However, as adults, we have a responsibility to teach children to act in ways that will keep themselves and others safe, and will help them to be happy in life as they grow older. Sometimes, though, getting kids to drop "bad" behaviors and pick up "good" behaviors can be tricky! One way to help kids change their behaviors is with a reward system. The trick here is to come up with a system that you and the child will be able to stick with for a while.

First, you need to identify what specific thing you want the child to learn. For instance, saying, "I want Timmy to keep his room clean," probably isn't specific enough. Even saying, "I want Timmy to clean his room each day after school," might not be specific enough, Timmy's idea of cleaning his room may be entirely different from yours. A better goal would be something like, "I want Timmy to make his bed, put his dirty laundry basket, and put his toys on the shelves where they belong."

Next, come up with a specific time and place that the child will carry out this behavior. In Timmy's room-cleaning scenario, the obvious place would be in his room. Timmy and his parents would need to work out a time frame that would work for them. Maybe Timmy needs to clean his room every day after school, or before bed. Set a specific time that you will check to see if the child has completed his task.

Its also important for the goal to be measurable. How will you and the child know that the task has been completed? What specific things will you be looking for? In Timmy's case, his parents may say that they will see a bedroom with no laundry on the floor, a neatly made bed, and toys all put in their places. For a child whose goal is to turn in her homework on time every day, her parents may look for a teacher's signature in her assignment book each day after school.

Finally, what will the child's reward be? The reward should be something the child wants, so that he will be motivated to do the thing you want him to do. But it shouldn't be too big! A trip to Disney World, of course, would not be an appropriate reward for Timmy for keeping his room clean. A half-hour later bedtime, extra TV time, or a trip to the ice cream store over the weekend, would be better rewards.

Specify when your child will get his reward. Saying, "If you clean your room every day for a while, I'll buy you that new video game," is not specific enough. Instead, try, "Clean your room every day for the next two weeks, and you'll get the video game." Put up a calendar, and mark each day that he completes the goal. For younger kids, or kids who have trouble working towards a reward that's too far into the future, you may want to make it a daily reward instead. "Each day that you clean your room by four-thirty, you can have a piece of candy after dinner."

Another reward that works well, especially with younger children, is Treasure Box. Buy a few small toys and other surprises that you think the child would enjoy, and put them in a box. If the child completes his goal every day for a week, he gets to open the Treasure Box and pick something out. The element of surprise can motivate a child to work extra hard at his goal! Having a Treasure Box is also useful if your kids are always asking for treats when you take them to the store. Lets say you're in Wal-Mart shopping for school clothes for your six-year-old, and he begs you to buy him a small toy he sees. You can suggest, "I can buy it for the Treasure Box if you'd like." This not only gives the child some extra motivation, but helps him learn about delayed gratification. He'll get the toy he wants, but he has to wait for it, and earn it.

Some people don't like the idea of using reward systems. They feel it teaches children to perform only for rewards. This may be true, in a way. We all perform for rewards in many situations. Nobody goes to work just because someone told them, "You need to work." You do your work because you earn a paycheck as a reward. When you clean your house, your reward may be a feeling of accomplishment, or the ability to find the things you're looking for, or the pleasure of a house that doesn't smell bad. When you take a shower, your reward is a clean body and a feeling of self-respect. When you cook dinner for your children, your reward may be healthy children and a feeling of being a good parent. Kids just aren't motivated by the same rewards as we are,

This doesn't mean you'll have to use a reward system for your kids until they grow up and move out of the house! Eventually, Timmy is going to realize that its nice to have a clean, organized room, and that if he spends ten minutes picking up his things every day, it will save him time and hassle. When he starts cleaning his room each day automatically, and stops asking about his rewards, you'll know he's outgrown the reward system.

Its important to realize that there are some behaviors that the reward system probably won't help. Children should not be offered a reward (or punished, for that matter) for behaviors they have no control over. One example is bedwetting. Why? Because, in most cases, when children wet their beds, they're asleep! Bedwetting occurs when children are so fast asleep that the feeling of having to urinate doesn't wake them up, but their bladders are too small to hold all the urine throughout the night. This is not something they have control over. Another example might be when a child has a learning disorder or intellectual disability. Its one thing to reward a child for doing specific things to help himself learn... spending a certain amount of time on homework each day, or doing extracurricular reading, for example. A child who is doing his best should be rewarded. But in some cases, children just cannot control how well they learn. If a child is doing everything his teachers ask him to do, studying, and doing his best, but still earning D's, on his tests, it would be unfair to tell him that you'll buy him a new toy if he gets an A in the class. Rewarding him for doing extra studying or coming up with extra credit projects to raise his grades would be a better idea.

In most cases, reward systems can work wonders for kids! In fact, you may even decide to set up a reward system for yourself, too!