Incentives For Your Children
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A few months back I had come across the All Pro Dad Program that is working to inspire and educate fathers on how to be actively involved in their children’s lives.
One of the features that All Pro Dad has on their website is the Play of the Day - which is the daily email service written by Bryan Davis that provides tips to help you be a better dad. Before we go any further, I would recommend that you sign up for the Play of the Day as Bryan delivers some outstanding tips.
The tip from today is an example of what you can expect to receive - incentives for your children.
Whether you work for yourself or for someone else, you likely have a variety of incentives that encourage you to put forth your best effort - with one of the primary incentives being the opportunity for a salary increase and/or promotion.
The same should hold true for your children.
Children have many things competing for their time and attention - not all of which are beneficial - and it can be easy for them to lose their motivation to be responsible and well-behaved.
Think about it - if you worked your ass off at work and did not receive any reward or recognition for your effort, it probably wouldn’t be long before you weren’t always giving your best effort. Children are not any different. When your kids work hard to get good grades in school and keep up with their chores at home but are not rewarded, how long will it be before they start to slip?
To provide incentives for your children, create an “evaluation” - not much different than your annual performance review at work - where your children can receive a predetermined number of points for giving their best effort. It is entirely up to you to decide what is worthy of a reward, as you may not wish to reward your children for performing basic tasks that are expected of each member of the family.
All Pro Dad provides the following suggestions,
- Room cleaned up :: 100 points
- Dressed and ready to leave for school on time :: 120 points
- No fighting with siblings :: 150 points
- Homework done :: 150 points
- Every A on a report card :: 1,000 points
- Every B on a report card :: 500 points
Once you determine the list of responsibilities that will be rewarded, sit down with your kids and agree on how they can redeem their points for rewards. Try to create a variety of rewards at a wide range of point levels - and keep them realistic. If your kids need to accumulate 200,000 points for a dinner at the restaurant of their choice, they may lose their motivation.
You might be thinking that this sounds like a system based on bribery but in fact it is a means of recognizing your children for doing their “job” well - much like you are rewarded at work for doing your job well.
What do you think of providing incentives for your children?
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I think it’s a great idea. Half the reason I stay at my job are the daily incentives (bribes).
The only problem I see with incentives for kids is that they can sometimes tend to game the system.
“Doing the dishes is only 50 points, so I won’t worry about it…”
That doesn’t fly, so they have to understand that they are required to do it anyway.
Otherwise, great stuff!
I do believe that rewards are important, but there are also things that just have to be done. I like the idea of having “bonus” chores.
Doing this way, you have a list of things that they must do. These do not give any sort of reward, but must be done to receive a reward. You then have the “bonus” list of things. If all the base things are done, then reward the extra effort of the bonus things. This also make it so they can’t “game the system”
I agree with Jim.
I have three kids and two of them are able to do chores. they both have “base” chores that they are required to do. If they decided to do extra chores on their own without me asking, then i reward them!
School grades are a little different. Straight As are rewarded by taking them out to their fav place to eat. Rewards are played by ear when it comes to A, B and Cs. Fs are immediate consequences. Thank goodness (mainly for the kids sake) that they have never gotten Fs. phew!
btw, great blog!
Andrea’s last blog post..Another funny picture
As you have all noted, there is a fine line between tasks that should be rewarded versus tasks that are expected as members of the family.
As an example, our kids are both expected to clear their dishes after a meal and put them in the sink. This is expected and will not be rewarded. If they clear everyone’s dishes and load them into the dishwasher, that could be rewarded.
Right now our kids don’t get letter grades in school as they only receive a general mark whether they are meeting expectations or are still developing the particular skill.
Andrea, I’m glad you like the blog!