Help, my 3yo is having a laugh with reward chart and my sanity

[MorePudding]

Having a hard time with ds2 who's just turned 3, especially when getting ready in the morning and for bed. Frustrating thing is, when I did a reward chart last week he was curiously helpful and completely cooperative. Behold a miracle I thought. Ha. Well, as soon as he'd won his prize and we finished the reward chart, the crafty devil, er darling, was straight back to his old tricks. Now at a loss what to do. Don't want to be blackmailed into having to do continual reward charts but on the other hand it makes life easier. Hmm, never imagined I'd be pitting my wits against a 3 year old. Any wise words of wisdom?

We had problems with DD at bedtime (she's 3.2y), getting ready for it was a real battle. Reward charts didn't work at all. What worked for us is routine - she needs to know exactly what happens next. For example from 6.30pm: charlie and lola (cbeebies), quiet playtime with daddy, brush teeth, toilet, pj on, two storybooks, goodnight kisses, lights off. Sometimes playtime is 10mins, sometimes 30mins, depends how tired she is but important for us is to keep everything in the same order. It seems like military operation but at least she's calm, i guess because she knows what's happening next.
Not sure it helps but maybe worth trying?

Ds has a reward chart at nursery - a flower with 4 petals. He can earn one first thing, between snack and lunch, lunch and tea, and then tea till 4.45. If he gets all 4 petals he gets to choose from a short list of activities that he loves (computer, hamsters out, and a couple of others).

Seems to work as he only gets one per time period, so has to be good all day to earn it. Consitency with it has helped too

We only start getting ready for bed at 6.45. Wee, pjs on, upstairs, story out of bed, story in bed, story out of your head, light off and goodnight. If you let DS bend the rules he def starts bending them even more

Thanks for your suggestions, given me some good ideas to try :-)

We are going to try something a friend does, which is to take photos of the child doing the things in the routine and then put them on a chart so that the child can look at what they have to do next. You could get some of those sticky velcro patches so that when they have done the thing such as getting undressed, they can put a tick/ pic of car/ thomas face etc next to the pic of them doing it. Then they move on to the next one.
What is working for us at the mo is a big box to confiscate things.
ds has a list on the fridge of things he has to do when asked with an emphasis on not whinging about it.
get undressed and dressed
eat breakfast
sit at table for luch and dinner (we have eating probs, so not focussing on eating, just sitting at table without whinging about how he does not like a,b,c)
go to bed and stay in bed.
If he doesn't do said thing or whinges, a toy goes in the box and he goes in the corner. he then has another chance to do it, if not, corner and another toy.
If a toy is in the box for not getting dressed properly, he gets a chance to get it out if he eats breakfast without whinging.
I know this may sound a bit of a faff, but it is working really well.
He did start off with quite a few things in the box but worked out quite quickly what he needed to do.
Keep changing things eg. make a chart where he has to get something to the top of a mountain, then when that is achieved, do one where he has to take a car on a journey along a road, thomas stopping at stations etc.

Thanks for this, nice to know we're not alone in our battles! Love the idea of a naughty toy box and also having specific things to focus on. Have found slight improvement since pre-school now finished for summer hols as I'm not so stressed getting out the door on time, and getting them to bed nice and early, so there's some hope! But definitely still need to improve things so will keep on and hopefully victory will be with us. Good luck with yours too.