Our Family Ladder (a reward system)

One of my friends recently wrote about a reward system she uses with her children.  I've mentioned how I feel about reward systems before and I wasn't sure if we needed one right now - until I thought about my little Bazinks.  He is at a time in his life where he is really testing his boundaries and trying to see just how much he can get away with.  I've been feeling like I'm often correcting him and I wanted to focus more on his positive actions - so he wasn't getting so much of my attention just from the things he did wrong.  I thought something like this ladder system would help him.

I thought about doing a ladder just for him - my kids are a bit older than Dreamer's and my older ones are able to understand that they ought to be obedient and good because it is how Heavenly Father wants them to be and not because of a reward.  Then I thought about how we've been getting sort of slow at cleaning the kitchen lately, and how their morning list isn't always done on time, and how family work takes longer than I would like... so I wondered if there was a way to make it work for the rest of the family...

 Just a silly recent picture :-)

I decided to make one ladder with one marker for the family.   Here's basically what it looks like (with a little more color and stuff):

                                 I                           I

                                 I           200          I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I           100          I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I           75            I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I           50            I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I           30            I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I            20           I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I            10           I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I             5            I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I         START         I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I             -5           I

                                 I_______________I

                                 I                           I

                                 I            -10          I

                                 I_______________I

                                 ....and so forth down the ladder to -200

 So here's how it works:

-Everyday, regardless of where we were the day before, our marker is placed at START - there is only one marker for the entire family - not one marker per person.

-Every evening we put into our bean jar however many beans our marker got to that day.  When our bean jar is full, we go on a family outing of their choosing.  We haven't had to take any beans away yet.  I'm wondering if the whole bottom portion of the ladder is even necessary.

-If, at anytime during the day, our marker reaches 200, we automatically get 200 beans in our jar, even if it's not the end of the day - and everyone gets a treat (we have frozen gogurts in the freezer right now).  I knew this would motivate my 4-year old a little more than beans.

This is how we move up the ladder:

-If I ask you to do something and you do it the first time I ask.

-If you notice someone else doing something nice (you can't ask to move up for the nice things you do yourself).

-If you complete a task especially well (in attitude or speed) (e.g. we move up 2 rungs if we complete the kitchen cleaning in 12 minutes)


This is how we move down:

-If I have to count to get you to listen to me

-If we take longer than a certain amount of time to complete a task (e.g. we move down 2 rungs if we don't finish cleaning the kitchen in 12 minutes)

Does it make sense?

This has been a nice tool in helping us work faster and in helping the kids to remember to obey immediately.   I talked to the older kids about how this is mostly a tool for helping their little brother learn obedience, but that they'll get to participate on the speed activities or when they need extra motivation to accomplish something (like times tables practice).  They like the game.  They've been pointing out the good things Bazinks is doing and he feels praised more often for the things he does.  It also discourages tattle-telling because if I punish someone by having them move the marker down, then everyone suffers.  It gives us a nice common goal.

I especially like that Bazinks is beginning to think of himself as a "nice, obedient little guy" instead of a "little stinker" as he was often called :-(  He is quite proud of his speed as he puts things away for me.  I sure love that little guy!  Thanks, Dreamer, for the great idea!

Some family updates:
Bud is sick with some stomach thing :-(  He didn't eat anything yesterday or dinner the day before.  I am waiting to see how he feels when he wakes up this morning, but since he is usually up by now, I don't think he's feeling better yet.

I had Mastitis last weekend, which was awful, but kind of nice because I got to lay in bed and read for about a day and a half.  I'm almost done with Teach the Children: An Agency Approach to Education.  I have learned a lot from the book and I wish everyone would read it, but it is kind of difficult to get through because you have to focus and think - it would have taken me quite a lot longer to get through it if I hadn't been sick because I found myself having to re-read many parts in order to get it.

Our quest for no contention is going well.  Not that we are close to achieving it, but we are becoming more aware of how it creeps up on us and how it feels.  Unfortunately, I'm noticing how often I speak in a certain tone that I don't like my kids using and how often I contribute to the contention!  Sometimes I wish kids weren't such great mirrors to our own actions!

We're currently reading Little Britches and the kids are LOVING it. Even Bazinks will laugh along as we read.

(This next part if mostly for grandmas and for me to remember in the future - you all don't need to listen to me go on and on about my kids)
I have the sweetest kids in the entire world. I often tell them how blessed I am for having them and Spice will reply how they are the blessed ones for having me - I just tell her that she's only proving my point. The other day, Bud got a consequence for leaving the yard without asking me for the second time in a row (I had to search quite a while before finding him both times). He had to clean out the fridge and the freezer. I was snapping green beans as he did it, and we were talking. I told him how happy I was that he was doing his consequence without complaining and taking it so well and how lucky I was to have such awesome kids. He told me he was the lucky one for having such a mommy - I said, "See what I mean? Not many kids would say such sweet things to their mom as they're busy cleaning out the fridge!"

Little Miss continues to be a cuddly bug and will come up and cuddle me whenever she gets a chance. I took her on a mommy-daughter date the other day and she talked up a storm. She is quite the talker when her siblings aren't around. She came home and wanted to make a "goal list" like her sister. Here's what she wrote: "What I should be doing: ride my bike, go on more mommy-daughter dates, piano, penmanship, math". So cute.

I was telling Bazinks a story about 2 boys - one was obedient and one wasn't. As I was telling the story, he stopped me and asked, "Which one am I? Fred or Bob (the names of the two Boys)? I said, it's just a story about two boys, you can decide which one you want to be like. After the story, I asked him to put something away from me and he said, "Okay!" Then he came back and said, "See, I'm like Bob, becaue I was obedient." I love the power of stories.

Ray is learning more tricks. He likes to pretend to read books and to talk on the phone. Here's a video of him talking:

What an amazing bunch of kids. I know Heavenly Father has reserved some amazing spirits for these last days. I am so incredibly blessed to have 5 of them!