I’ve been having a little trouble with my two kids (aged 4 and (nearly)7), winter has been especially dull and wet and being cooped up indoors too much has made them restless and naughty (well, I suspect they might have managed it without the weather, but…)
I have noticed that it is hard to be consistent with rewards and punisments, so I have devised a chart;
Is this fair?
Will it work?
It sounds fair to me. I’m no child psychologist, though.
And I’m no parent either.
However, I always figured that rewards for being good (not necessarily doing as they were told, but possibly “staying out of your hair”) should be more spontaneous. A surprise milkshake or something to that effect, with a direct reference to the reason why she/he is being treated (“you’ve kept your room clean for a whole week without being told…good job”), can do wonders for a child who is still trying to figure out in advance what is expected. It can mean a tremendous difference when differentiating between whether a child is acting because he/she wants to or if he/she is acting simply because he/she has to. A week is an awefully long time to a four year old, and constant reminders of Saturday if he/she misbehaves can possibly serve to desensitize the importance of the goal.
I also believe in the principle of goals as well, though. Perhaps a comination of the two ideas would work best. Raising children is a never-ending experiment, I suspect.
Parent of 4 here and teacher of emotionally disturbed kids.
My recomendation is do not have a way to lose sunshine points.
Have the children agree to these rules. Have you discussed the rewards with them? Make sure that these are things that they want. When you are ready, have the children agree to this. Make a contract. You agree to it also. This gives accountability all around. They cannot argue with you because they have agreed to these rules.
I would also recomend a warning before issuing pig points if the behavior is escalating.
“If you choose to continue this…you will be earning some pig points.”
Say this before it’s time to take them.
All in all, great system! Stick with it and I’m willing to bet that you will see behavior improve in a few weeks! I would like to hear how you do!
It seemed ok up until this point:
Uh uh, no way is that fair. As an adult I can’t persuade my coworkers to “be good” (i.e., let’s not purposely do what the supervisor just asked us not to do, even though you think she’s being anal) to avoid lectures about proper procedures, and you want to base a child’s rewards/punishments on their abilities to influence their sibling?? You’re only setting them, and yourself, up for failure if you insist on not treating them as individuals who are going to behave or not entirely on their own. Also, little kids don’t think the way we do; they often don’t feel the guilt you’d expect. I’ve worked with 3-6 year olds, and inevitably someone will get so frustrated with one child in the group they’ll say something like " Billy, if you don’t behave yourself, we’re not going to have our party today. " Does Billy worry about how hurt his friends will be that there will be no party because of him? Not judging by behavior after such a declaration!
Anyway, the rest of the plan might work out well, besides the bribing them with sweets part. Maybe you could do something fun instead? There are a lot of seemingly insignificant things that a kid would consider a treat that might be better for them. Bubbles, flying a kite, playing catch, doing an art project etc etc.
Fair? Parents are supposed to be fair? Well, damn. I’m going to have to start all over again.
I think it’s fine to link siblings’ behavior. The idea is that Mom or Dad isn’t bugged, not that little Suzy or Davy gets his or her own brownie points. As long as they’re treated equally with regard to rewards or consequences, I don’t have a problem treating siblings as a unit (assuming that there’s not a significant behavior problem with one and not the other).
For children that young, I might try to find a way to have daily rewards/consequences as well as aggregate weekly ones. It’s very hard, when you’re four years old, to think about how your behavior today will affect you five days from now. John Rosemond (with whom I don’t always agree, but who often has some very good, sensible parenting advice) has often given the following recommendation (this is from his March 11 column, but applies to many circumstances):
What about electric dog collars?
There’s a very good reason that they have to share one set of points elfkin477; at the moment we get a great deal of “it wasn’t me, it was him!”, “She started it!”, as well as ‘egging on’ - “Go on David, let the budgie out”- in these cases, arriving after the damamge has occurred, it is often impossible to determine who is telling the truth.
I’ve seen them help each other as well as fight; the combined points is an attempt to encourage cooperation (hopefully, at least in some cases, they will act as each others’ conscience and take a little responsibility for each others’ conduct).
Besides, I don’t want it to become a bitter competition.
I may drop the pig point overflow clause… we’ll see.
I think the shared-point-pool thing will probably end the “he did it, no she did it!” behavior.
Mind you, if memory serves, the cooperation it sparks may well be mutually adamant denial that either he or she did something. But the ability to conspire in a cover-up is a very valuable life skill to develop. 
The issue that I would see with points being shared (especially pig points) is that you DO want your kids to open up to you.
You may end up creating a situation where neither child will speak up against the other, even if speaking up would be a desirable situation, for fear of gaining a pig point or losing a sunshine point.
I think you may be better off assigning each kid points, but as soon as the situation arises where “he did”/“she did” becomes the argument, warn them that pig points are at risk for both of them as the “he did”/“she did” is not desirable.
This way they both become aware that blaming the other child is also bad for them, but allows a situation where one child is being naughty does not have an impact on the other.
As a kid, especially on some days, I would have gone out of my way to gain pig points, just to piss my brother off. It wouldn’t be fair to him if I was just being a pig so I could get back at him for something he did to me.
Separate pig points for each, but share the sunshine points and reinforce the benefit both kids get when they co-operate. Reinforce the desirable situation of sharing, but let the kids take the pig points for their own behaviour if it’s undesirable.
As a parent of three, overall I think you have a really creative and probably effective tool there. However, I also kind of have a problem with communal points. I vividly remember the frustration and anger that my daughter went through when her teacher used the same sort of collective punishment - to the unruly kids “If you don’t behave, we won’t do whatever.”
It was really heartbreaking watching my daughter try to think of ways to make her classmates behave. When I suggested to her that their behavior wasn’t her responibility, she would declare “But Ms. Teacher cancels good things she is going to do for us!”
I like Caught@Work’s solution of sharing the sunshine points, but not the pig points.
Two points:
Repercussions for bad behaviour must be pretty much immediate. Accumulating points over a week, especially for a 4 yr old, is not very effective. By the end of the week it is unlikely they will remember much about the incident that earned the points.
absolutely no sharing of points, that will build resentment in the child that has worked hard to be good if the other one has not able to.
The Sunshine points, especially if accompanied by a visual chart, with the reward at the end are an excellent positive reinforcement tool
Good luck with it
Separate points would work better, I think, if their ages were closer, but he’s only 4 and she is nearly 7; part and parcel of the whole thing is to try to get her to show a little care for her younger brother - more often than not, his bad behaviour is sparked off by something she has suggested or done.
I’m all for immediate rewards, but I’m not giving them sweets every day… Saturday is sweetie day… I’d be grateful for some suggestions for other, more immediate rewards (I don’t want to make a reward out of their bedtime stories, as I feel that reading together is essential for their development).
Sharing of blame for everything is one of the main causes of the rift between my brother and I.
My brother is 3 years younger than I, and as the oldest, I was held responsible for everything. If he refused to do his part of chores, I got punished as well. If he misbehaved, I got punished as well. He enjoyed this. If I did well, he shared the award with me. He learned that he could easily get my privileges taken away and still reap the rewards himself of my good grades, my doing chores, etc. One of the main things we got punished for is fighting. I stopped fighting with him and he would just keep on taunting and attacking. He would increase his attack until I had to respond. He used weapons such as an aluminum baseball bat or a metal ashtray stand to attack me from behind. Ignore that long, even from a 5 year old, you are dead. If I told, it only increased my own punishment, so I learned to take as much as I could. He god good at taunting me through blockaded doors. Blockaded because he would do his best to knock them in if I just locked them.
If I failed to act as his servant, he would either make up something to get me in trouble or do something himself. Punishment did not seem to bother him at all, but it tore me up. I hated being punished, especially for what I did not do. I grew depressed. As he grew up the lesson he took from it is that it was ok to punish me for things he did or for no reason at all, and there was no motive for him not to punish me directly as well.
Once whem my parents went out for the evening, I was 16, I tried to eat part of the dinner that she had left for us, he beat me bloody. He had decided that I was too fat and did not need to eat. I escaped into the street eventually and some kind people took me in and called the police. When the police came and got my parents to come home, I, again, was the one in trouble because I could have ruined my father’s career. I stayed home from school the next day because my left eye was swollen shut and I was too sore to walk. That was not the only time something like that happened, but it was the only time I ran outside. I learned again that I had to just take his abuse. I grew more depressed.
I moved out as soon as I could after graduation. If I visited home the abuse continued. Last time I tried to visit my parents, I was 21, he broke my nose and beat me hard enough to bruise bones. The doctor was surprised that nothing was broken.
I no longer speak to him. I will only attend family functions if he is not present. I find that with no active abuse in my life, I don’t get depressed anymore.
You may get lucky, or you may just encourage parasitic behavior. I hope you have better luck than my parents had.
I love the names. Pig points and sunshine points are just so cute.
Good plan.
Try it for a while and see how it goes. No harm in that.
IMHO, they’re both too young to understand the fairly complex system you’re setting up. A lot of adults would be uncomfortable working under such a system.
For children of that age, earning a pig point would probably be discouraging factor for behaviour, but so would you saying “stop that”.
The “sunshine point” is an encouraging factor, but, again, so is saying “good boy” or “good girl”.
In effect, you’re putting in place a system where it’s “do what I say or you don’t get ice-cream several days hence.” Like be good, or Santa won’t bring you presents. The reward or punishment, when it arrives, is too remote from the offence.
Again, IMHO, it’s too complex for children of that age.
Gosh, what an awful thing to happen lee, I’m really sorry to hear about that.
I certainly don’t intend to leave anything to luck.
Possibly, although they are bright kids (I would say that) - often they will claim that they have been good all week etc, the chart is just a way of keeping a record; I don’t want their misdemeanours to hang over them, but they need to start understanding that effects have causes.
I did something very similar with my own kids at around that age – although they are closer in age than your two. They were 4 and 5 when I did the points things. It worked well for us. Basically, we had a board on the refrigerater and they started each day with a number of points – they lost points for misbehavior and could gain points for good behavior above and beyond the usual. They got a positive reinforcer every day they got the required number of points . The daily reinforcer was a small thing – just a few Skittles after supper. We also had a weekly reinforcer – a late bedtime with a rental movie and Happy Meals for supper on Friday, and a monthly one – a new (small) toy. I didn’t link their points together, although fighting and bickering was a behavior that cost them points and cooperating and/or helping each other could gain them points.
A couple of things helped this program suceed for us: First of all, the best reinforcer was the competition – one week my son failed to get the required number of points for a Happy Meal and he had fish sticks for supper on that Friday and went to bed at the usual time while Doe ate her Happy Meal in front of the VCR and got to stay up an hour later… that never happened again!
Another big helper was the fact that the reinforcers were really treats. My kids had candy pretty rarely and almost never got fast food – we couldn’t easily afford it in those days. And I was never one to buy them a lot of toys other than birthdays and Christmas. That’s why I chose those reinforcers – they were things the kids wanted enough to work for.
Finally, I was careful to tell them was that the “points thing” wasn’t a permanent feature. I explained to them that it was a tool to help them get into the habit of good behavior. We did this program for about 6 months. At the end of that time we had an outing – a movie and lunch at McDonalds – to celebrate their “graduation.”
The improvement in their behavior really did carry over beyond the length of the program. They are 15 and 16 now and still good, though by no means perfect, kids. BTW, they still remember and talk about the points system fondly – they often talk about “points” when they’re eating Skittles!
Jess
Hey, it might work for you, but to me it just reinforces the idea that parenthood is wank.
I was with you up until the part where there are no separate points for the kids. Unless the point is to teach the kids that the world is NOT fair, this seems like the wrong thing. It seems wrong to me to assign responsiblity without authority. Would it be fair to assess you a fine because your neighbor did not keep his grass cut? How about if they tell you it is up to the whole neighborhood to help each other keep their grass at the proper length? My neighbor has 5 acres of land. I don’t want to be forced to mow his AND mine. That would only reward his laziness and punish me for it.
Should I be fined when you speed? If I have not control of another’s actions, I want no part of their punishments - or their rewards.