Family
The Effective Use of Charts and Rewards, Part 1
Jonathan's parents were drained and frustrated. There was an air of defeatism as they described Jonathan's defiant and disruptive behaviors. Nine years old but he seemed to be running the household. As is typical, dealing with his behavior problems had become a source of tension between the parents, adding marital conflicts to an already over-stressed family. They described their efforts to discipline him. Having read books and gone to workshops, they were aware of a range of techniques but they insisted that nothing worked because Jon didn't care about anything enough to make it a useful tool in influencing his behavior. Yet, when I asked what Jon really liked to do, the parents told me about his love for playing the drums. He had become quite good in a short period of time. They stated that they did not want to take away his drums, although they had threatened to many times, because that was about the only good thing in Jon's life these days. I offered an alternative. Instead of taking away the drums, having Jon earn his time to use the drums. By establishing a short list of desired, positive behaviors and giving each one a value in tokens, Jon would earn his tokens and turn them in to play his drums. It worked. The alternative for Jon was to lose his drums altogether. He actually didn't fight it as much as expected. Sometimes kids just get stuck into a pattern of behavior that they can't let go of without feeling "defeated." Also, children really do want their parents to be strong because it is scary to them if they can't rely on their parents' protection. Jon was clearly happy that his parents had found a way to get things under control and it built off a mutual recognition of what a talented drummer he had become.
Positive reinforcers (rewards), often used in conjunction with charts, are one of the most effective discipline strategies. Yet, there has been some controversy of late with a few professionals claiming these are potentially harmful techniques because they teach children to expect to be "paid" for everything they do and it resembles bribery. Let's quickly eliminate the latter as an issue. A bribe is a payment to someone for doing something illegal or inappropriate. Rewarding desirable behavior in children is unequivocally not bribery.
As for creating children who would only value material rewards, this ignores the fact that using tangible reinforcers is only a small piece of the child's daily life and occurs in a context of family and social behavior that is more likely to be a greater influence in establishing the child's sense of values. In fact, the parents' values, as reflected in their own behaviors and, which have been decidedly materialistic for the past two decades, are of much more concern as a model for their children's view of life. Fortunately, research suggests parents are moving towards healthier models of valuing personal relationships, family ties, and community involvement.
Charts and rewards provide some very valuable means of teaching children about behavior and consequences. In fact, it is a very effective way to carry out one of the most important parental responsibilities: teaching children to be responsible for the consequences of their behavior. Equally important it reduces reliance on punishment as the primary means of disciplining children. Too much use of punitive methods creates a harsh, negative parent-child relationship and often backfires by generating excessive anger and diminished self-esteem in the child. Also punishment emphasizes the child's need to stop unacceptable behavior but typically fails to provide an alternative. Reward systems can be used to teach acceptable behaviors.
Additional positive aspects of using charts and rewards is that they require clearer definitions of what is expected, they generate more structure (which is especially important for younger children or children who are not very organized), and the child is a participant in the process making it more likely he will follow through.
To create a chart requires parents to focus on selecting an important behavior or set of behaviors that they would like the child to change. This means parents must prioritize because you can't focus on too many issues at once. This process is often a critical one because it requires parents to sit down and address their complaints in a constructive manner. The list of possible behaviors is virtually endless. Most common issues parents present to me include getting children ready for school and/or bed, sibling fights, tantrums whenever the answer is no or something goes wrong, behavior during dinner, cleaning up toys, doing chores, and accepting limits.
Next month I'll describe how to put a reward system into place and offer a few more examples.
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