Would reward charts work?!?!

[Flamesparrow]

many threads on here about Flameboy and my lack of control.

I haven't bothered with charts before because I didn't think he would "get" it. I'm still not entirely convinced, but anyone think it would be worth a shot???

This morning I told him he can't just climb for things he wants.

He informed me that he can and showed me the DS as proof (DS was obv removed!!).

I don't even know how I would go about it - a sticker for not climbing for a certain timeframe?!?! You aren't meant to do negative stuff are you? Even if I did, I get the feeling he would be on minus numbers for life...

[mrshibbins]

i tried reward charts with SD (then 7) but they didn't work

the first week there was novelty value and in her ticking the boxes, but then, even with ludicrously low targets, she got bored, tried to rewrite the chart herself, then announced she 'didn't care' if she didn't get a trip to clown-town or extra pocket money or whatever the reward was ...

[Flamesparrow]

I have been thinking of it more over the day. I just can't see him having the dedication for it.

We told him if he gave up his bottles (he's 3 1/2) he could have Jessie (from toy story). He decided he could wait and get Jessie later, the bottles were more important.

I can see it being the same with climbing... "stop climbing and I get x. But life is good with climbing and without x, so why bother?"

[sooey76]

I've just done a parenting course at my local sure start centre. I don't know if you've heard of it,by an american woman called carolyn webster-stratton (look it up on the internet). Basically reward charts are suitable for his age, but you need to be concentrating on only 1 thing at a time, and make the rewards attainable. He needs to get a small reward every day at his age-bubbles, balloons, although with some children just the reward of a sticker is enough.No minus points allowed, if he earnt a sticker for good behaviour then you can't take it away if he misbehaves (look up time out).Sit him down and tell him what he has to do to earn a sticker, how many stickers he needs to get a reward etc. Have a bag or box ready with the rewards in so he can choose and is not waiting days for his 'prize'. Older children can have varying rewards some with low amount of stickers some with more.Reward positive behaviour, so if he asks for something instead of just climbing and getting it himself, reward the behavior you want to see more of. Good luck!

[moondog]

Reward charts are far more complicated than peopel often assume. Two mistakes often made, these being inconsistency of use and providing rewards the child doesn't care about anyway.

I'm big into this stuff being a behaviourist.

Webster-Stratton is great if you can get on a course.

Personally I wouldn't be using a chart for this behaviour though. You need to be keeping things you don't want him to have out of reach. That's the most effective way to take control of the situation.

[tethersend]

I agree with moondog- the number of times I have seen reward systems fail because the child hasn't chosen the reward themselves!

However, I would use a chart for this behaviour.

Correctly, you don't want to reinforce the negative (ie, not climbing), but to gain points for 'having feet on the floor' might work. Behaviours can only ever be replaced rather than stopped, so the goal is to replace climbing behaviour with feet being on the floor- positively reinforce/reward that.

Please don't use minus points, I think it would be counter-productive, and the chart could end up being a stick to beat him with (metaphorically, you understand!).

I would do this at given intervals, as little as a minute apart at first- 'Have you got both feet on the floor? Excellent, one more point!!!/Ah, shame, no point this time!' Perhaps 10 points=one sticker or a prize. If this is too long to wait, make it 1 point=one sticker and buy a LOT of stickers. I appreciate you may feel like a complete looney doing this so often at first, but you can elongate the intervals to 5 mins, 10 mins and so on as he gets the hang of it.

I would also remove temptations where possible, and give him another strategy to gain access to stuff (incidentally, what does he climb to get? What is DS, am I being a bit thick?) he wants. As sooey76 says, label and reward the behaviour you want to see.

Good luck!