Responsibilty Charts/behavior Charts

I think you are right. To take away a happy face as a consequence focuses on their negative behavior but getting a happy face for good behavior focuses on the positive behavior.

Your husband wants to set up a punishment chart.

Psychologically, that's part of how you break a prisoner's spirit in longterm interrogation. You set them up with hope, and then you take it away, bit by bit throughout the day. Then the next morning, you set them up again, and strip them of it. Repeat the next day. And the day after.

With most adults it has them begging inside a week or two. Kids are more flexible than adults, however. Studies of children show that they don't break, they learn distrust and deviousness instead.

In nether case are we talking geneva convention torture/ punishments. Simple things. Simple hopes. Like a phone call to a loved one (playdate for a child), a chance to see sunlight/go outside (going to the park for a child). Simple hopes, offered, but always under the guillotine at the whim of how your captor views your behavior.

Shudder. It's particularly effective, though it takes a lot more time than standard tortures. Ruling out of fear.

Now, I'm (hoping obviously) not saying 'don't punish'. Discipline and punishment are rather necessary in childrearing. But it's the daily threat of punishment, always hanging over their heads, that breaks the spirit of adults and the trust of children.

There is a reason that all of society rewards good behavior. Do a good job at work, get a bonus or a raise. Eat your dinner; get desert. The charts are set up for rewards and not punishment. The directions with yours are the way that time and experience have taught that the chart works.

I can hear him say that if we do a poor job we get fired. Yes, and yet the focus in a job that people enjoy doing is on the bonus and not on getting fired. Warning an employee that he's not up to par and on the way to being fired is saved as a last ditch effort to get compliance.

I suggest that most people who are unhappy at work are unhappy because they and their good work is not recognized. People love praise. They gripe about the negative comments.

I must also add that there have been studies that show that what we focus on is what we get. When we focus on good behavior we get good behavior. When parents mainly punish life soon revolves around when will I get in trouble again. We work for rewards. We're anxious about punishment. Which sort of focus would he like his children to have?

To reward good behavior doesn't mean that we ignore poor behavior. Discipline in the form of consequences has to be a part of parenting. The chart is for recognizing good behavior. I think the best way to discipline is to use natural or related consequences. The natural consequence of not doing chores is to not have stickers.

I don't know the age of your children but many young ones will work to get the stickers (happy faces) and the praise that goes along with them. They love putting them on. They love counting them. They love being told, "look at all your happy faces! You're doing a really good job!"

Older children may need a "prize" at the end. So many stickers earns them a treat. Not enough stickers, no treat. There can be other consequences for specific behaviors. The happy faces are for everyday things that we expect, such as chores. A more serious behavior such as hitting can result in no sticker as well as a time out, for example.

I hope your husband isn't so negative about other things. It's tough to live with negative words. Positive statements work much better than put downs. Does he want his children to have a positive attitude towards chores or does he want them anxious and uncertain of themselves and their ability to have good behavior?

No, your way is much better.

It's better to try to catch your children being good instead of being bad. It will make you enjoy each other more. You typically find what you go looking for. Why not look for something good?

Plus, it's more motivating for anyone to try to earn something instead of try to prevent something from being taken away. Wouldn't you rather feel that your actions will improve your life instead of feeling "This is as good as it gets, and anything I do will only make things worse"? The former breeds pride and confidence; the latter breeds fear and resentment.

You are definitely right. People are motivated by positive rewards, not negative consequences. One of the basic rules behind sticker charts/point systems is that you NEVER take away what has already been rewarded.

For more details, you can check out any of the positive discipline books or the Kadzin Method.

We struggled with points/chores/routines for years. What finally worked for us was that we separated out routines from chores from behavior. So I have printed and laminated (with pictures for our youngest) morning, afternoon/evening and night routines. These include basic things we do when we get up, come home, and go to bed like get dressed, make bed, have breakfast, brush teeth, put on socks and shoes, hang up jackets and backpacks, put lunchboxes on the counter, put shoes in the bin, pick up toys, put on PJs, have dessert, read books, brush teeth, go to bed. These are geared towards the younger kids but the older kids have these ingrained in them already. There's no reward for making a bed, this is just something you do when you get up. If they're slacking, then we will award points for doing their "routines" quickly and cheerfully.

We then have a dry erase chore chart that we got at Target. This has rotating chores - emptying dishwasher, setting table, vacuuming, lawn mowing, pool vacuuming etc. Each child can see what he or she is scheduled for that day. If he or she wants to do something fun (have someone over to play or go somewhere, play video games, watch a movie, use the computer etc.) it gets done after the day's chores are done (evening chores will spill over into the next day's privileges). So they're not getting "rewarded" for basic chores, but they are learning that when their chores are done, they can then to something fun. Work before play. We will sometimes reward "points" for doing chores without being reminded or for doing something especially well.

Finally, we do points for behavior improvement. For example, we did points for one of our sons to practice lowering his voice (he's super loud) and his reward was using the iTouch for 10 minutes. Right now we're working on being flexible and cheerful when he doesn't get his way - instead of a tantrum, he has to be graceful and agreeable and go along with the plan. Once he gets 10 points for this (which includes practicing the behavior as well as seeing it in real life) I'll take him to Taco Bell, which is where he wanted to go the other night and had a meltdown because we had Chinese food for dinner instead. All of the kids are working on points to go to a water park - we use this to cut down on bickering, especially in the car.

So anyway, I just wanted to share what worked for us. You are definitely on the right track - you want to keep this upbeat and positive. It's about recognizing and praising the behavior that you want, not punishing the behavior that you don't want.

You keep it positive. The more negative it is the more they are going to start thinking they can never meet expectations and think about it, every time this happens they are going to freak out and cry and sulk around. I just could see a child getting sad thinking at every turn they could be punished or have a smiley taken away. Any reward system seems to lose it's shine after a while. I've never heard anyone punishing a child because they don't have enough stickers on the chart, that's pretty mean of him. Is he planning to punish when they don't bring home an A, but never say good job on the A they did bring home? See what I mean. That would make me feel horrible about my self-worth.

I agree with Peg in the positive discipline, it will feel unnatural and out of your comfort zone but after practicing it it will have some awesome results. You just have to be consistent. Honestly I don't use anything but natural consequences now and people around here get jealous how behaved my daughter is. It's not just a miracle that she is that way, it was some hard work.

I see they are 3 1/2 and 2? The chart may not work at all because at that age they don't fully understand "future" rewards. Look up a post a few hours ago on the recent questions board, she had a similar problem with it not working with her 3 yr old (I believe).

I noticed you posted similar in January, did you try it the first time or is this an ongoing conflict? I agree with past responses that the charts don't really teach self-motivation, honestly not very many punishments/rewards do. Have you read the positive discipline books? Positive discipline by Jane Nielsen, How to talk so kids will listen (this works great on my 2 1/2 yr old), I recommend those. I would try out some positive discipline based of your past posts that you tried these charts when she was 3, along with other methods that didn't work with her. You know what Einsten's definition of insanity is right? Trying the same thing over and over expecting different results lol.

Good luck girlie :)

If a reward that the child earns can be taken away, kids can find that very dispiriting. What if your boss could deduct from your pay everytime you made a mistake or displeased him. You probably wouldn't want to work there long.

Discipline and training generally works best if kept positive. It can be effective to simply ignore most rule failures, and focus only on one or two particular rules at a time. I grew up in a rule-bound home, and never felt there was any possible way to meet my mother's expectations. It took me many years and many mistakes as an adult to figure out that good choices were for my own happiness, not my mom's.

We just started a responsibility/chore chart one week ago with my four year old. He has five things to accomplish during the week and every night before he goes to bed we go over the chart to see what he's done that day. If he did the task then he gets a star. If he gets 5 stars out of 7 a week he gets $1 for that task. The reason we started this chart was because his behavior was getting out of hand with the small chores we'd given him and it teaches him the value of money because he's constantly asking us to buy him toys.

As far as a punishment for him not doing the task that's given to him we do not give him punishment. We just talk about why he didn't accomplish the task and how he can improve on it. Also, he doesn't recieve the stars so therefore he doesn't receive the money either. An example: One of the tasks is not to throw tantrums or whine! OMG! Thank goodness for this chart because he actually improved his behavior. It doesn't always have to be a chore it could be something like not arguing at bath time.

I believe he's learned about how to improve upon things with this chart. And he gets so excited to go over the chart which makes me think he's definately interested in the chart/program!

In response to the punishing for not doing the task, I don't agree with that. You should automatically correct your child on the spot if they are not doing something they are supposed to do. So, basically you guys are waiting to the end of the day to punish them....hmmm...by the end of the day noone is going to be happy. It just doesn't sound like a good system.

I don't endorse either way. I believe that the message and value we need to give our kids is that "do something or because it is the right thing to do", NOT "do something because there is a reward or punishment coming afterwards”. Either system diminishes a child's self esteem and confidence because that way a child becomes dependent on us to get validation that he/she is good - an external evaluation. It teaches a child to do something only to win our approval/love. Our kids need to be told that we love them no matter what -No conditions of rewards or punishments. They are not our employees that need a performance evaluation. We brought them into this world because we love them not because they must prove themselves to us to earn our love. And they are lovable simply because they are and should never have to depend on an external source to appreciate and love themselves.

As for teaching good behavior, they mimic what we do and learn on their own as they mature with age. We as parents make mistakes too and are not perfect when we yell at them, get angry at them or each other or are unreasonable and often don't follow our own rules and argue with each other. They are watching us how we behave and learn on their own. If there is a system it should apply to everyone in the house even grown-ups. That is how we do it in our home. All human beings including parents and children are equal in human rights and get to point out to each other if any one of us is not following through on our commitments and promises (whatever our excuse or reason).

As for our responsibility, we just need to point out the right and wrong choices, they make the decision (except when it is an immediate safety issue and we must take charge). As for consequences, they get natural consequences when they make mistakes along the way and adapt accordingly and make adjustments on their own. We need to be there to respect, appreciate, and thank them for trying. That way they learn to become self-disciplined not conditioned by punishment or rewards.

I highly recommend reading Alfie Kohn's books

-Punished by Rewards - the trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A's, praise, and other bribes
- Unconditional parenting: moving from rewards and punishments to love and reason

My kids were never motivated by a chart, no matter how hard I tried....
Ended up, they knew they had to do xy and z. If they didn't, no reward. I also, refuse to "remind". I have too many other things to do. If they're young, just make it simple. They have to do x every day. If they're older, keep adding to it. It relates to the real world. You don't do the "work", you don't get "paid". Anyway, it worked great for me. Good luck!