Shiny Coins Almost Always Do The Trick!

I shared with you about the responsibility charts that we use (and LOVE) with our kids. The icing on the top was that these charts dealt with attitudes AND actions which we think is a GREAT combination.

Why is that important? Because what you measure matters! So far we've found that the best reward possible is the positive affirmation that they get in being recognized for doing well in their attitudes and actions and lots and lots of love, affection, and celebration around growth. But most of that is pretty intangible and we all tend to do better when there's something tangible we're working towards, right? Cha-Ching!

 

Does giving a set allowance work best? 

OR

 Does rewarding kids only if they do their responsibilities work best? 

Here are our thoughts...

• We didn't want our kids to simply get a set "allowance" every week with no effort involved. 
• We also didn't want them to have to feel that they had to earn all of their money either. 
• We wanted them to learn how to use money.
• We wanted them to know that they had worked hard to earn some of it too.

Ultimately we came up with a reward system that was a good mix of both worlds.

Each of our kids receives a set amount of money weekly based on their age AND a "bonus" amount for not losing too many smiley faces based on their attitudes & actions.

To be exact they each receive a quarter for every year old that they are. Which is also why having birthdays around here is a BIG deal! Not only do you get a special day but you also get ANOTHER quarter each week from thereafter.  We have to remind ourselves that it is the little things that truly can cause such excitement in kids. In this case, getting an extra quarter every week sends them shooting to the moon!

On top of receiving your quarters "just for being part of our family" you also can earn a "bonus." The bonus is the same for everybody... $1.50.

 So our four year old could potentially get each week...

 4 quarters for being four, and 6 quarters for earning his bonus = 10 total! 

We picked seven smiley faces as the grace amount that a child can lose in one week in order to still get their bonus. If they lose more than seven smiley faces then they still get their quarters based on age but not their bonus. I'm a visual person so here are some examples for ya...
 

Wahoo!....he got his bonus and his quarters based on age this week!

 (He didn't lose more than 7 smiley faces so he gets both!)

Bummer...he didn't get his bonus this week
(because he lost more than seven smiley faces)
but he did still get his quarters based on his age.

This way each child is always walking away with something...and something is better than nothing and helps keep the motivation going!

We keep all of our chart supplies in the basket on the right side of our fridge (you saw what use to be in the basket on the left side of the fridge in this post.)

The basket has everything that we need. 

• extra magnets for the charts
• white board markers
• white board cleaner
• the younger kids money envelopes (the bigger kids use banks that they keep in their rooms)
• a bag to hold all of the quarters to be given out in the weeks to come (please don't consider robbing my home, this really is all the cash that we keep in the house. It isn't much and you would essentially be robbing from my kids and the world would dislike you forever...just sayin' :-)

This really helps to have the quarters ahead of time so that they can be counted out for the kids to visually see at the end of the week. Otherwise, in our case if I run out, we just write the number of quarters that we owe each child on their white board until we re-stock the bag and pay them in full.

What happens if a child has an excellent week and doesn't lose ANY smiley faces? Well, we had that happen a few times and realized how important it was to reward that accomplishment. If a child doesn't lose any smiley faces then not only do they receive their bonus of $1.50 but they also receive a whole extra dollar as an additional bonus!

8 yrs old + bonus + additional bonus = ONE HAPPY LITTLE GIRL!

What if a child loses more than seven smiley faces half way through the week, do they lose motivation to keep meeting their goals? We have found the answer to that question to be, YES! So we picked ten as the most smiley faces that you could lose before having to "pay" us a quarter for each additional smiley face. At the end of the week you will still always get your quarters based on age (that is just for being a part of the family) but you will also have the privilege of paying us back the number of quarters required for those additional smiley faces that you lost. To this day no one has ever chosen to sabotage themselves but they have had to pay us a few quarters back on the really rough weeks.

It may seem like giving kids money at early ages is pointless, a waste of money, or "not in the budget" but when you think about how important good money habits will be for the rest of their lives and add in the fact that it addresses the "Mom and Dad are my ATM" mentality = it's been great! We NEVER have to buy our kids random things when we're out or listen to them beg or whine for something they just saw because we can always say yes to their requests with "Yes, you can buy that with your spending money." Usually the desire to have whatever has their attention at the moment drops off pretty quickly after that. It's funny how now they only ask if they can buy something at the store when they're serious about using their money to buy it!

To summarize...don't feel overwhelmed by this...it obviously isn't the only way to reward kids for completing their responsibilities and working on attitudes and behaviors. It is simply a system that we felt worked for our family. You have to figure out what works for yours!

Over the next few weeks I plan on covering more topics on this area like,

Teaching Your Kids About Having "Happy Hearts"

Age Appropriate Responsibilities & Goals

Teaching Your Kids How to Sort their money: Giving, Saving & Spending

 Taking your kids on "Looking Trips"

How We've Found that Consistency Benefits us as Parents

So keep checking back on Mondays for more Parenting Posts.
I look forward to sharing more things that we have discovered along the way!