Alternatives to a reward chart?

[caspercat]

Hoping someone can help us please???

DD is 5.6 years old. She really is a loving, happy, funny, bright girl who is also strong-willed & a bit of a drama queen. Like most nearly 6 year old girls, or so I'm told!

Since she was nearly 4 years old we've used a reward chart with her, using it to reward good behaviour rather than punish the bad. She has responded well & loves earning her rewards (extra bedtime story or craft time when younger, now somehow morphed into pocket money ). Tho she still has bedtime stories & we do crafts ALL THE SODDING TIME

Anyway, recently we're having a little more trouble with her - and she doesn't seem as bothered by earning her rewards. If we warn her that a certain way she's behaving will lose her her 'smiley face' on the reward chart, she just shrugs! We really try to ignore the bad & really praise the good (she is especially good with her younger brother & every day I sit her on my lap & say how proud I am of her for being such a fab big sister), but there are certain ways she speaks back to us & is generally defiant that we need to sort. I keep hearing about a reward method where people use a jar filled with pasta/marbles etc but I can't seem to figure out how it works & I want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I try something new. I have spoken to DD about stopping the reward chart & told her why, and she was upset cos she says she likes getting her reward. I explained she hasn't being doing that well with it lately, she knows which behaviours we're not happy about & she's keen to try something new.

Phew, promised myself I'd keep this short, so I failed miserably there! Does anyone have any tips as to how this pasta jar reward system works who can give us some tips? I love my DD dearly (obviously) & I really want to see her blossom & enjoy our time together.

Thanks for reading xx

You put a piece of pasta or a marble in a jar each time the good behaviour happens. When it's full there's a previously agreed reward - trip out, special toy, restaurant trip maybe?

It's quite 'schooly', but then so are reward charts IMO, so if it works for your family fair enough.

What about taking away from her pocket money? Every time she is rude etc u deduct say 10p?

sassskia it's tricky to do that, cos she earns 10p a day if she gets at least 8 of her 12 smiley faces, so she might've been mainly good but done a couple of mean things, but still gets enough smiley faces iyswim. If it seems as clear as mud to us, then it must be even more confusing for her! But thanks for your suggestion, every little helps!

For a critique of rewards systems see www.naturalchild.org/robin_grille/rewards_praise.html

The alternative to reward/ punish is to work out what is going on behind behaviours that you don't want - baby in the house is ringing alarm bells here - and try and address the unmet need at the same time as working through acceptable expressions of difficult emotions. Is it possible she doesn't quite like having to be such a good big sister/ doesn't always feel 100% positive about the baby but doesn't want to say? Just a thought.

DS is 3 years old, sorry, should've made that clear! It really seems that she genuinely cares for him, I honestly don't think there's a problem there. The one thing I know we could improve on is dd having time just by herself with either me or dh. It's tricky cos dh works a lot of weekends & we don't have any family nearby to have ds to help out. In the Easter hols I'm going to put ds in nursery for an extra day so dd & I can have some special girly time. Thanks for all replies so far x

We're about to start this with ds who is 3.5 because he's going through a lot of change which equals challenging behaviors and if we don't start using carrot rather than stick he will spend his whole miserable life on the naughty step!!

We're going to a massive toy shop tomorrow to choose something for him which he will get once the jar is full. In theory then when we ask him to do something I suppose we'll say I'd you do x you get a marble in your jar. If we ask again he won't get one and I'd we ask again he gets one taken away. (we have to ask him constantly to do things), am toying with the jar being emptied if he lashes out, which may seem but but he's never been that physically aggressive before and today nearly whacked his 4month old sister very hard and I can't risk the baby being hurt.

Will see how it goes but my SIL found it worked really well with her daughter