Responsiblity Chart??

[mamamiabeans]

I am looking for some ideas on how to reward my 3 year old when she makes good choices and completes her tasks on her chart. 

I have this "Responsibility Chart" and there are about 8 things that she needs to do each day (no whining, eat dinner, brush teeth, etc).  I started off rewarding her at the end of the week but that wasn't working because too much time went by without her receiving some sort of reward.  Then I broke it into 2 times a week she would earn a reward and I still didn't like it.  The other problem I had was that I gave her some cool reward choices (sand table time, sprinkler) but then I never did it with her because it was too hot out or I couldn't take her outside because I was with the baby.

So, now I am trying to make the chart thing work before she totally loses interest in it and thinks I won't follow through.  I am interested in rewarding her everyday when she accomplishes everything.  I just can't thing of what to use!  She likes stickers, but not enough to work to earn them.  Then I was thinking of having 7 special toys in a box that we only take out when she earns a reward.  Then she'll get to pick one each night to play with.  I also don't want to use food as a reward.  I am more interested in picking a special activity or toy.

Hmmm, now I am rambling.  I just really want to find something that will work because she is really into the chart and I foresee it being a really useful tool when bigger issues arise and I really need to nip the behavior in the bud! 

Thanks for any ideas!

[peachespoe]

I recently purchased some bedtime chore cards (http://tinyurl.com/3oxovpx ) to help my almost 3 year old with our bedtime routine. Bedtime has been getting to be more and more of a struggle. The idea is that she gets to flip the card after she does the action (brushing teeth, going potty, getting jammies on, etc.). We just started with the cards so right now, just flipping the cards is reward enough for her, but I anticipate she will get bored with it sometime soon. I have come up with a plan for rewards when the time comes...if she flips all the cards over before the timer goes off (10 minutes?) then she can choose a card from the "Bedtime Bag." The cards will be laminated pictures of her doing various activities (and the words written on them for us) such as getting a 1 minute piggy back ride from Dad, getting a foot massage or shoulder massage for 5 minutes, getting to read an extra story that night, etc. I haven't decided if she will only get to pick one card by reaching in at random or if she can actually pick the one card she wants from all the others...we'll see.

Anyway, here are the activities I have come up with so far:

-piggyback ride up and down the hall for 1 minute

-5 minute foot massage (or shoulder massage)

-an extra story

-watch videos of herself from when she was a baby for 5 minutes

-bounce on our bed for 2 minutes

-broom tag (game we made up) for 2 minutes

-hide and seek for 2 minutes

-hammock swing for 4 songs (DH and I swing her in a blanket back and forth while singing rock-a-bye-baby or row-row-row your boat)

-blanket ride up and down the hall 3 times

-listen to special stories on CD/MP3 player as she falls asleep (Indigo Dreams CD)

-Candlelight story time

-Go on an animal safari (we hide animals around the house, and then go looking for them with all the lights out, using a flash light...a winter activity for when the nights are dark earlier.)

and so on.

Some of these may get her to riled up before bed, so we will have learn through trial and error...and I have a feeling the Indigo Dreams stories will be the one she wants the most, so maybe that reward is fine as is: http://tinyurl.com/3p2hvys.

Basically, I thought of activities she loves to do, but we don't do that often. I figure the process of picking a card with her picture on it will be pretty exciting in itself for her for a while too.

I look forward to reading other posts for ideas!

[mamamiabeans]

peachespoe- love all of your ideas!  This is exactly what I was hoping to figure out but I am just not as creative as you! 

I think all of these rewards will be great and my daughter will love them.  Thanks!!

[pianojazzgirl]

I think you might have better luck with dealing with one problem area (behaviour, difficult time of day, etc) at a time.  On your chart you include things that are daily tasks (brushing teeth) and things that are behaviour issues (no whining).  I think you will more success if you tackle one issue at a time (or maybe 2-3 related issues - like the various steps needing completion at bedtime).  We don't do behaviour charts here, so I'm not speaking from experience, but just going on what you've said it seems like you might have set up a bit too much of a complicated system.

Just to use the bedtime thing as an example (not sure if that's an issue at your place), one thing you can do is work with her to make a pictorial chart of all the steps she needs to follow to get ready for bed.  Together you can talk about all the things that need to be done to get ready for bed.  Ask her what order she thinks they should be done in.  Then work together to draw/colour pictures depicting each of those steps.  Then when it actually is time to get ready for bed have her follow the chart and tell you what comes next.  We've done this before (no reward or stickers involved) and it really worked.  Just involving dc in the process and having them take charge a bit at bedtime really did the trick.  Of course I used bedtime as an example, but it's possible to apply the concept to different issues that might arise.

[foreverinbluejeans]

I'm against charts. I believe rewards and motivations should be internal not external. The child is only 3! What is the rush? Right now adults should be responsible for her and let her have her energy for developing. The focus should be on harmony.

If you are into training your child books by Karen Pryor might interest you. Love & Limits by Elizabeth Crary uses charts to motivate young children. Pryor and Crary both have web sites.

[LynnS6]

Developmentally, most 3  year olds are a bit young for reward charts to work. And they're far too young for reward charts to work if they have 1/2 a dozen things to keep going for a week. 3 year olds need very immediate feedback for them to be able to link behavior with reward. The other thing is that you need to take a good look at your expectations for your daughter. At 3, according to all the dentists I've talked to (OK, 4), YOU still need to help brush her teeth. They don't have the manual skills to get the teeth as clean as they should be. (You should also floss for her.) Now, if she's refusing to brush when you're helping her, that's a different behavior to work on -- it's called 'cooperating with mommy'.

For routine kinds of things, it often helped my kids is to establish the routine and then ask them what comes next. They were so proud of themselves for being able to tell me, that it went well. But to be honest, I'm still 'monitoring' the bedtime routine for our 7 and 10 year olds. The routine is: pajamas, snack, read to self, brush teeth, read with mom/dad, go to bed. And I still need to remind them of every bleeping step to get them moving. They'll happily get their pjs on, and then get distracted playing with something (or in ds' case, checking scores on ESPN.com). Writing this out makes me think I need to back off on that a bit for our 10 year old. However, our 7 year old still needs the structure we provide. (She's not very internally structured and so does need firm external structure.)

For the whining -- that's a big one. While whining drives me nuts, I think it's important to actually turn this into something that she CAN do, rather than something she can't. What does 'not whining' look like? Does your daughter know what it sounds like? Can she do it even when under stress?

One technique that I've used to some success is to ask my kids to rephrase. It's HARD to keep the emotion out of your voice when you're upset, even for adults. So, when they were 3-4, I'd say something like, "Oh did you mean, "can I please have a glass of water?" Initially, all it took was them saying "yes" and I'd be OK. I figured I had to TEACH them what not whining sounded like. Then once I was pretty sure they understood it and they could use the polite request or polite voice when they weren't under stress, I'd ask them to rephrase a whine. "Hmm.. that sounded rude or whiny, can you say that another way please?" If they needed help, I'd model for them and ask them to repeat (sometimes they would, sometimes not, that's OK). By the time they were 5-6, we were down to: "That sounded rude. Try again." Interestingly enough, dd (who's 7 and my major whiner) can immediately rephrase it into something more polite, but it's very very hard for her to get the whine out of her voice. We're working on it, but I expect it to be a couple of years, quite honestly, before she can rephrase both tone of voice and the sentence. (And then we'll have 2-3 good years until the teenage voice starts to come out).

If you choose to go with rewards, then as a previous poster noted, you'll have much more success if you work on one behavior at a time. Reward charts work really well for specific behaviors that you want to train (and it is training), but that will eventually become second nature. So, for example, I used reward charts to potty train our ds. I didn't have to use them forever, just about a month. However, I've NEVER used rewards for school work. For school work, I'll sit down with them if they need it, I'll ask them if they've done it. I'll help them in any way I can. But the homework is THEIR work, and if they are not motivated to do it or choose not to do it, then they get to deal with the school on that. (We don't homeschool.)

Finally, some kids do well with reward charts, others don't. Ds responded beautifully I tried a reward chart for potty training. I tried it with dd last year for doing chores and piano practice without whining. It was a huge failure. After 3 days, she took it, wrote across the top "I HATE CHORES!" and stopped caring. Sigh...

[mamamiabeans]

Hmmm, I think I should have elaborated a bit more when I posted this thread.  The chart is more for fun then enforcing problem behaviors. This is the first time I started using a chart for her since I felt like she was mature enough to understand it.  I certainly help my DD brush her teeth and do not have unrealistic expectations on bedtime routines, etc.  I was really just looking for some ideas for some special "treats" and activities for my kiddo. I wanted to create immediate feedback and mix it up a little...