LEGO® rewards Feedback Thread – Non testers: what occasions do you usually reward your children for? 10 MNers will win a LEGO® set of their choice worth £50 *NOW CLOSED*

[AngelieMumsnet]

This thread is for the 30 Mumsnetters who are currently participating in the LEGO® reward activity.

Here’s what LEGO® have to say: “Here at LEGO®, we’re interested to see what occasions you would consider rewarding or treating your kids with LEGO®? A great school report. Holiday treats. Good behaviour on a trip to the dentist. Helping in the garden. Tidying their room. Mum's little star. There is a great LEGO® gift idea starting from £2.49 that is fun, creative and made for every occasion. With so many sets to choose from, we think LEGO® is a fantastic gift for every occasion and we’d like you to tell us about it!”

Non-Testers: LEGO® would love to know what occasions you usually reward your children for. Everyone who adds a comment will be entered into a prize draw where 10 Mumsnetters will receive a LEGO® set of your choice worth £50.

Testers: We'll be asking you to add feedback three times - we'd like your first impressions now and at the end of each week of the testing period, we’d like to know when you rewarded your DCs with a LEGO® set, if at all.

So for your first impressions, we’d like to know:

• Which LEGO® sets did you receive?
• Which of your DCs would you be rewarding, if a reward/treat situation arises during the testing period?
• Over the testing period, are there any particular occasions (other than Birthdays, of course!) which you think might be a suitable time to reward your DCs with LEGO®?

Every tester who posts their feedback will be entered into a prize draw, where one winner will receive a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

PS: We've 'highlighted' the testers posts on this thread so we can see them!

Please note: LEGO® and the LEGO® logo are trademarks of the LEGO® Group.
©2015 The LEGO® Group.

Non tester - if we've been through a rough patch (we have a baby, there are a few of those!!) sometimes we'll buy him something that we know he'll be excited about. We've had a tough time potty training. He was so happy when my husband brought home a brio train engine!

Maybe actually it's more a reward for us?? It's so nice seeing his face light up when he has something new (usually something small like a matchbox car is the best!). He'll often go on about it for weeks!! So thinking about it, usually the treat is because want to give something. Is that bad?!?

Sometimes treats are because he needs distracting. Like new stickers or a book if I want him occupied.

Non-tester
I normally reward my 4 year old when he helps with chores or does his homework (writing letters) quickly as normally takes 2-3 hours to get him to do 3 lines. My 9yr old gets rewarded when hes done well at school or does his chores and homework without being told.

Non-tester here.

I try to keep rewards for genuine achievement (rather than the daily stuff the dcs are supposed to do anyway), so it depends on each child, and we try to keep them small.

At the moment:

dd2 (very nearly 5) got a reward this morning because she has gone an entire week without a single temper tantrum. This probably shouldn't be a big deal at her age, but it is a massive breakthrough for us, and has made a huge difference to the atmosphere at home. She got a bottle of bubbles (told you we don't do big rewards...!) and is made up :)

dd1 (7.5) has worked incredibly hard this year and made big improvements to her reading. She's really stuck at it, and we are really proud of her. Her reward is getting a copy of the Beano every few weeks. Her last 'big' reward was when she stopped biting her nails last year, and we bought her some Lego Friends kits.

ds1 (nearly 10) will be allowed 30 minutes on my ipad when he's done exceptionally good work or been particularly kind and patient to his sisters Last big reward was also nail biting related: he got the Lego space station (although he paid for half).

Non tester - when my children behave in an especially good way or for helping with things around the house.

I tend to reward my children with treats for exceptionally good behaviour. Such as being extremely helpful or very kind to a sibling. Whilst I use positive praise when they are generally well behaved, I do not want them to think that they should always be rewarded for generally being decent human beings!

Achievements at school are also rewarded in the form of a treat, this may be a new toy or simply an evening of DVDs and popcorn.

I am a non tester.

My daughter endures many hospital trips as she has problems with her eyes so her treat afterwards for being brave is a Lego Friends set. We also use the little Lego mini figures sets as rewards when we think she deserves one - e.g. she got one last weekend for helping me weed the garden! (she's 6 years old).

Non tester

My DS is only 18 months so I tend to reward him for things like having to go to the Dr's or dentist or hairdressers. The hairdressers scares him most of all so something new to fiddle with there is worth every penny!

Non tester here.

DS2 gets rewarded for using the potty (so not very often), and at least trying the food on his plate.

DS1 gets rewarded for doing well in spelling (10p per word), good feedback at school.

Both get rewarded for general good behaviour at home. Stickers= points and points = prizes!

Non Tester - We're having difficulty getting my eldest daughter to read on her own at the moment. She keeps losing concentration. She wants some new running shorts. We've told her she can have her choice of shorts once she has completed 6 novels. Of course, the younger one who is an avid reader, now also expects a reward every time she reads 6 months. I'm worried she will bankrupt us!

Non-tester.

We don't hand out rewards all the time - good behaviour is expected without needing bribes (adults included!). But we might reward for for concerted effort on something that we're having particular problems with - at the moment we're trying to get DD up and out for school in the mornings without having to be prompted every step of the way. A reward is still some way off.

We also keep a jar on the mantelpiece and add in a couple of dried pasta shapes for the little things that don't always get recognised - giving a friend a hug when she's sad, trying especially hard not to do something she's recently been told off for. When the jar is full she gets a treat of some kind - we usually let her choose, but LEGO would be the perfect reward for this.

Non-tester, we don't do rewards as a matter of course, because we try to encourage the children to do things for their own merit, but treats will always have a place. Two of my dcs are Lego mad. In fact ds has been saving his pocket money for weeks to get the Ninjago Lego. So I guess that's one way he's rewarded for his frugality :o

On days out, if they've behaved well, we always try to get a momento of the day for each child. I know if there was Lego in the gift shop, that would be the first port of call for my dcs. Any chance Lego could start visitor centre sets?! Just some Lego knights at a castle, a roller coaster at the theme park, a character being beheaded for the London Dungeons? It'd be nice to buy something that ended up really getting used!

Im a non tester, we currently give lego for my almost 4 year old as a reward when he fills his reward chart with stickers. His current favourite is his daddys 'olden day lego' especially the gold mine lego

We rewarded our 6 year old son again, this time with the swamp police set. He has been earning points for doing his everyday routine things straight away when we ask and extra points for other behaviours we want to encourage. E.g. he suddenly started tickle attacking people out of the blue. If he remembered not to do it all day he got 2 points and that means he can have one slip and still be motivated to try.

In the light of the experience, as DS responded so positively to the idea, we decided to carry on with the lego reward points after the two weeks.

We have had to reduce the value of the points as we can't stretch to £8 per week. We have agreed with DS to reduce his pocket money to 50p a week and then the points can earn 3p each. He can easily earn 10 points per day just by following his routine, and we are often awarding extra points.

We asked DS to choose his reward. After looking on Amazon, we found a set of 3 ninjago bags on eBay for £10, which meant he has to get 111 points for each set. These have been very successful, as he can earn one in around a week.

DS did so well at home and school this week - which can be a real challenge for him as he often does well in one and then struggles in the other. He has earned lots of Lego points and is star of the week at school. We decided to reward him for star of the week with one of the bag sets. He was thrilled and it felt really good as parents to be able to treat DS as other parents seem to treat their kids.

We are definitely going to keep this going for now.

My ideal rewards would cost around £4 and be like the promotional sets you get free with newspapers and only seem available to buy via people reselling. DS would love Ninjago ones which you could build something with straight away but if you collected all the sets you could build a bigger model like a temple or a vehicle. Like the mixels idea only with ninjago.

Thanks for the rewards and the inspiration. We are very grateful for the help in finding a way to reduce the daily stress points, as this has done.

Just spotted that I forgot to re-state that DS has autism, and needs extra encouragement to be able to manage things which typical children find easy. Hence the rewards for following his every day routine happily.

Tester here, and swering the last set of questions:

1. Did you reward your DC(s) this week?

Yes

1. If so:

• Which of your DC(s) did you reward?

7 year old DS.

• Which LEGO? set did you reward them with?

The remaining Lego City set age 5-12.

• What did you reward them for?

Doing a stack of homework at the weekend. Handwriiting, grammar, reasoning, spellings and reading. All without (much) moaning!

1. Overall, how did you find rewarding your DC(s) with LEGO??

It worked well. It was nice then, after supervising the mountain of homsework, to do something fun with DS so we used the Lego together.

1. Would you consider using LEGO? as a reward in future?

Definitely. I will buy a few small packs whenever I see them. I think these Lego City boxes retail for about ?7 or so. That is too much, I think, for a weekly reward, and homework is done every weekend. But I will definitely use Lego as a reward in the future. maybe every month. Unlike other, cheaper, toys, it lasts and lasts and can be re-used with other sets, so its not like spending ?4 on some magazine that DS will look at for half an hour and then throw away.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Aargh, just realised I didn't check back in like I said I would when my younger foster child won his reward. Tester here by the way.

My 6 year old has now earned his Lego construction site reward by earning 5 stickers on his reward chart by being good at school. He was very pleased with himself, and so far this half term is behaving much better at school than last half term.

The boys really enjoyed the opportunity to earn rewards and loved the Lego sets - particularly the swamp one (mainly due to the crocodile.)

I have kept the reward charts going, and I have put together a box of cheapish toys and magazines that the boys can choose from when they've earned 5 stickers. I have put a couple of Lego Mixel packets into the box.

Thanks again for this opportunity.

Hi everyone, thank you for all your posts on the thread - they're great! And thank you to the testers who provided their feedback. The prize draw for both testers and non-testers are now closed.

Congratulations to moominnewbie for winning the £300 Love2Shop voucher for providing feedback from the Product test.

Also, congratulations to the following non-testers who have won themselves a LEGO® set worth £50:

notjusttheirmum
KittyFan83
JellyDinosaurs
happylittlevegemites
Osquito
elfycat
welshpolarbear
SuzCG
Lreece
sofieellis