Rewards Galore

Our son started kindergarten this year. It's funny because they use a reward system similar to what we use (see previous post). In his school, kindergarten has a 10 sticker system. When they earn 10 stickers they can pick whatever they want out of the Treasure Basket. They also earn green, yellow or red faces each day. A green face is good. A yellow face is given if the student is told twice about breaking a lesser rule. A red face is given out when a big rule or 3 warnings about a lesser rule are given out. Lesser rules are talking out of turn, not following directions and the like. Big rules involve hurtful physical contact with another student using their body or items. Yellow and red faces also mean a note is sent home to parents, which a parent then has to sign and return.

Anyway, we have piggybacked onto the green happy face system. For every green happy face, he earns $1. A week of all green happy faces earns him a star (value $4). He is paid his green happy face earnings (allowance) on Saturday mornings. He tends to save $1 each week, and given that's 20% that's pretty good. In actuality he has saved more than that as he has earned $12 so far an only spent $5.

He has earned 2 yellows and one red so far. One of the yellow and the red were earned when he went back to school after being out for 3 days sick. He was too excited to listen to the teacher and stop chatting with his friends. We helped him by teaching him to look at the teacher when she is talking. He listens only when he is looking at you, so we taught him to always look at us when we're talking to him. We're still working on that.

Tonight he earned another star. This time for politeness. He said, "excuse me" to his dad when daddy blocked his view of Teen Titans. His tone was polite and he waited patiently until his daddy realized he was blocking our son's view. Daddy of course smiled. Our son thought he was in trouble, but we explained that he had politely indicated to Daddy about his blocked view.

..:sidetrack:..
When I was in school, I paved the way for my sister. I don't ever recall being sent to the principal's office, being in detention, or even getting into a fight. Probably because I'm a big chicken. Anyway, I was one of those students who could occasionally be called teachers pet. Not because I buttered them up, but because I was polite and didn't chat in class. I'm hoping my son is the same.

..:back to our subject:..
He is shaping up to be a good student. We just need to keep motivating him to want to be that way. I frequently tell him he is a "good boy" and say "remember you are a good boy". When he was a toddler I would say to him "You must use your powers for good not evil". I know brainwashing, but I think it's working. He does have a good heart and a caring almost empathetic personality. His dad reinforces the "stand up for your self" part when needed (see post Genetic Roots). He has occasionally had to stand up for himself, but because he is one of those kids that gets along with everyone, he doesn't usually get in trouble. I of course remind him that he should use verbal warnings as much as possible when some other child is troubling him.

One of the techniques we taught him was how to deal with someone who is bothering you. We told him to loudly say, "Stop that, I don't like that". It's a way to tell the offending child to stop and also draw attention to the conflict without tattling. It also puts the other child on notice that they are being warned that continued harrassment will be dealt with. So far he has only had to go that route a few times in the past year. His verbal warnings are now rare for him to give out.

At his preschool/daycare last year he had to daily deal with a child who would try to tackle him the minute he walked in the door. My son at first tried to fight back, but after a while of initially getting into trouble and our explaining how to use verbal warnings, he learned to simply ignore that child. True that child has issues so he hasn't stopped the tackle attempts, but our son has learned patience and the ability to ignore slights or little annoyances.

Our son is learning how to deal with difficult people (troubled children) at a young age. This should help him deal with the difficult people (overgrown children = aka adults) later in life. He is also very adept at getting along with many people, which will help him socially later as well. I know the better you are at getting along with people the more successful you tend to be.

TAGS: rewards | parenting | positive reinforcment

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