The kids have always received appropriate disciplinary actions for their not so good behaviour. I am however starting to find that now that Keera’s six and Zaden’s four they are starting to learn how to really push my buttons…intentionally. Thankfully Emilee’s too young to do it, but I’m sure with two siblings to learn from she’ll likely pick it up fast. Welcome the behaviour chart, I’ve been wanting to make a behaviour chart for some time now; but the usual busy parent/procrastination excuse has always been strong for me on this. Tonight the kids were arguing about something silly, and I lost my cool. I went straight upstairs and rummaged through the craft paper searching for green, yellow and red paper. Enough was enough, I was going to make a homemade behaviour chart this moment!! I couldn’t find any red or green paper, so I worked with what I had. Blue, yellow and pink, it is! These colours don’t make sense, but they will have to do. At least until I find the time and correct supplies to make something better.
I know it’s nothing fancy, but it seems like it’s something that can work really well for our family. We are a bilingual household, so our chart obviously reflects that. I also wanted to put the pink at the top and the blue at the bottom, but this was ten minutes before the kids bedtime. I felt rushed and didn’t want to have to come back and finish it once they were in bed. I wanted to enjoy the silence, doing unparent things such as writing this blog post LOL.
To make it fair and create less conflict about who’s got the best paper clip holder, I used three paper clip holders in the same colour. I then chose three different coloured paper clips to represent each of the kids. Blue is Zaden’s, Pink is Keera’s, and Purple is Em’s, then I connected them together so I could move their “markers”(I apologize, I’m not sure what to call them!) around easier without wrecking the paper.
The idea and rules are that the kids get one point everyday at bedtime, if they have their “marker” in the pink or yellow (preferably in the pink). If they are in the blue at bedtime they don’t receive their point, if they fight and have hit each other they lose a point. You can’t earn more than one point a day, and these points are not based off of chores just their behaviour. I’m still working on the reward aspect of it, but different amounts of points will be different rewards, every Friday they will be allowed to either spend their points or save them for the next week, etc.
I don’t believe in rewarding a child with toys for good behaviour, it’s just not my style of parenting. However I like the idea of letting them either pick an activity or maybe going for a treat with their points (these things are extras, and they don’t count towards things we normal do, they go beyond that).
Do you have a behaviour chart in your home? Does it work, or not work? I would love some reward suggestions.