For a long time I floundered when it came time to reinforcing skills and tasks that I wanted to see in my children.
For example, getting their chores completed by a certain time, going to bed at a certain time, etc.. As a working homeschool mom, I would be working in the evening and would not always be able to chase the kids to perform theses tasks. How could I get them to be motivated to do these things while I was working in my home office?
This was the question that plagued my mind but it wasn’t until I went to visit a college friend and saw her rewards chart that it finally clicked. I mean, I had used a rewards system in the past in my classroom as a teacher but I never thought to use one for my own kids.
I asked her for a picture and loved it so much I decided to modify it for my family and implement it. What a difference it made!
A few things I learned along the way.
The rewards system works best with family meeting follow up. It doesn’t have to be very formal and I really didn’t think of our meetings in that way until recently but every Sunday (or there about) we would review the rewards system and what I wanted to see in them for the upcoming week. When we started each day with worship, I would remind them of the goals for the day.
I went to the Dollar Store and got raffle tickets. When my children earned a ticket, I would write their name on the back and what the ticket was for and signed it. This helped because if you have multiple children, it prevents the “THIS IS MINE” argument. The signature makes it official in case someone wants to “add to their collection” without permission and the task reminds me what I gave them the ticket for.
Once the children earn enough tickets it can be redeemed. My husband also threw a monkey wrench in there… tickets can be taken away too. Oh boy did they hate that!
I have been using the system for about a month now and I can see differences. I have not been implementing as consistently as I’d like but I noticed they are motivated to do what needs to be done and tasks that seemed to be like pulling teeth have become easier.
One word of caution.
Every reward system needs to have consequences built in. So make sure to think about what the consequences will be when they don’t get it done. Our consequences ranged from no screen time the next day to tickets being taken away, etc.
You can learn how you can download my simple system by clicking here.