Anyone have a great reward system for SA kids over the summer? I'm thinking of having a "funny money" reward system. They'd start off the week with five "dollars" and will have the opportunity to earn or lose "money."

Earn $1: 20 minutes reading a book, 30 minutes playing a sport (we have tennis courts, basketball courts, and soccer field next door at our disposal), random act of kindness, etc. Any other ideas?

Lose $1: Complain, argue with me, be rude to a friend, say the phrase "I'm Bored." Anything to add here?

I was thinking I'd get a bunch of bubbles, games, and toys at the dollar store and use those as $10 prizes, 30 minutes of music on the stereo as a $15 prize (winner picks out the play list), but I'm stuck on what a big prize could be.

Any help with rewards? I will have kids ages 5 to 10 in this group.

Reply

I tried something like that a year ago with a couple of my DCKS. I had a "goody box" with prizes they could then buy with their money. The issue I found, was it wasn't improving the three or four behaviors I was trying to target, and became a hassle to keep up with.

Reply

Thanks for the input. What were the behaviors? The main ones I'm interested in stopping are the whining, complaining, "I'm Booooooored" business that sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. It seems most school age kids are extremely fluent in Whinese. Any suggestions?

Reply

Mine was rough housing such as screaming and yelling and running in the house. And turning off lights such as when they left the bathroom. I got so tired of fighting lights, I recently put in automatic switches. But my two got to where every time they did something it was "look I ate some veggies do I get a dollar? Oh I walked from that room to this room do I get a dollar?" Every time they did the littlest thing they thought they earned a dollar. But every time I took a dollar it was whining, and begging me not to.

Reply

I assumed she would be using play money. That was what I used.

Reply

What my dd's class did was have a group reward. They earned gems for certain things (helping a friend, finishing work quickly, walking quietly to the gym, etc). When they earned enough gems, there was a reward that they all voted on as a group (extra recess, electronic time, pj day, movie day, etc).

I am not fond of the idea of rewarding expected behaviours but the goal seems high (rewards don't happen all the time) enough to encourage good behaviours over all and the kids all look forward to it.

So perhaps if they earn x amt of gems or dollars, then they can pick a special activity for Friday afternoon? Or every two weeks, or whatever works for you. They can vote on preselected things that you decide are ok and do-able? Watching a movie. A special art activity. Water play. Water balloon fight.

You could even have a bigger reward to work towards... like a carnival day at the end of the summer.

Negative behaviours are penalized with a different system. They get points on the board and if they receive so many points, then they miss recess. I don't know how you could apply that to a daycare scenario off the top of my head.

I do like focussing on the positive, though, and earning towards a group goal.

Reply

I love the idea! I would add sassiness even though that could be included under being rude. That age group can be awful darn mouthy so I feel it needs special attention.

We've done different methods of reward systems here. One summer I sat the dcks down and asked what good behaviors we're having trouble remembering. Then we picked 4 for each dck and made incentive charts, I think they each had 20 spaces on them. Every time they got caught by ME remembering a good behavior(because yes, they can expect it every time they breathe correctly )they'd get to put a sticker on. As soon as their chart was filled they went to the treat box(all $ store stuff) and got to pick something out.

Another summer I offered rewards for reading books. Depending on child and their level, I determined how many points each book was worth and after so many points they could pick out a Beanie Baby. My dcb that was heading into 1st grade actually jumped a couple reading levels; he seriously LOVED Beanie Babies.

And yet another summer, every time I caught someone being good, that dck could put a marble into a jar. Once the jar was filled we had a special day, much like what has been mentioned above. I really like the idea of focusing on the good stuff.

There are so many ways you could do this. You can figure out what will work best for your group, how much $$ you're willing to put into it, and the particular behaviors you're trying to stop. It can always be tweaked along the way because I have found sometimes I've made it way too easy or just the opposite. Are you able to sit down with the dcks involved and ask them for their input? It gets them psyched up about it!

Reply

What about a chart? Amazon has a lot of good options, just search for behavior chart.

Reply

What about art supplies as a bigger prize?

Reply