Token reward system - what about punishments?

[tastymorsel]

I've got four-year-old twin girls who can be lovely at times, but awful at others! Recently they have started screaming and shouting when they don't want to do something. This sort of thing seems to be increasing.

I bought them each a see-through money pot and loads of coin "tokens", which I'm using to reward for good behaviour. At the end of the week, we are going to count up the coins and see what reward they have earned.

I have two more money pots that I was going to use for negative behaviour - each time they shout and scream then a "negative token" is put in. But I'm not sure how to make this work. Some ideas are:

• More negative tokens than reward coins = no reward at the end of the week
• Each reward token is worth one point, but half a point is deducted for each negative token

But I'm not too sure if I'm overcomplicating it for them. I also don't really want them to lose any rewards earned, as they did still display the good behaviour in the first place. I just don't know how best to manage the bad behaviour. Does anyone have any ideas?

By the way, I've read a number of parenting books and tried various ways of managing the behaviour in a "gentle" way, but as I said, it's only getting worse...

Awful.
Don’t use the negative pots, that’s a terrible idea. At that age consequences should be immediate, and not a visual reminder that sits there all week, that they can’t really relate to. It will just cause upset and tantrums when you start deducting tokens from the ‘good’ pot, which I don’t think is a brilliant idea either tbh.

Ok @SixFifteens. I was coming to the same conclusion about the "naughty pot" so will scrap that idea. I am getting very desperate though, so would be interested to hear what you'd suggest to try to tackle the behaviour? Why is the token pot not a good idea?

I have read books such as "the book you wish your parents had read", "how to talk so young children listen" and "no such thing as naughty". Unfortunately nothing I've learnt from them has been very effective, so I feel that a stronger approach is now needed :(

I read every single book out there. I tried every bloody thing. In the end I realised that the negative punishment approach doesn't really work.

The above sounds way too complicated. I wouldn't do the negative removal thing.

I'd start by looking at everything you're asking them to do. Is every single thing necessary or can you just pick your battles and scale some things back. This realisation was the greatest for me. If they're really rebelling so much, it may be all too much whatever it is they're being asked to do.

The reward system might be too complex or broad and not specific enough. It's a good idea to pick one thing you want to work on. Explain very clearly that you want them to work on this particular thing. It is exciting to use a visual poster. There's a great pirate one online I found and you move the pirate along a path. There's a visual reward at each stop along the way. It's so much more fun than a clear jar. You'll probably have to go really over the top with the wow look what you have just done. Let's move you to here. Let's go get ice cream,you did it. Etc etc.

Simplify things as much as possible. Pick one behaviour issue at a time and write it on a giant poster above the visual poster or whatever you use. Write on the poster what you're working on that week. Make sure they understand exactly what they need to show you in order to get the reward.

Don't take anything away but later on in the day you can say. It's a real shame because I want to take you guys to do xyz as your reward but you are not putting in the effort today with this.

Ask them why it's difficult and they are resisting what you ask of them when you're all having chill time. They may tell you something you didn't realise beyond just not wanting to do it.

I'd stick with just the reward pot, but have set expectations of what will gey the point, instead or aswell as rewarding random acts of 'goodness'.

Eg. "Screaming hurts my ears so lets work on expressing our frustration in a different way (give examples of what they should do), if you go a full day without screaming, then I'll give you a point". Then maybe a couple of warning like "if you don't stop screaming, you won't get today's point", and any time they manage a request without screaming, praise that and give a bonus point.

As they get the hang of it, you can phrase out the warnings and bonuses, then eventually stop all together or move on to a new target behaviour to work on.

If you do something negative, then there always needs to be a way for the kid to gain back something if the behaviour gets better. Having the negative pot in front of them all week without a way to change it, is not good. They have to be given the chance to change their behaviour