Rewards

[Softball25]

I am looking to implement a reward system. We currently just vocalize the reward. As many of you know ADHD'ers tend to forget easily and can benefit from visuals and reminders. Any suggestions or recommendations is greatly appreciated.

[Madmarie]

I found a dry erase board w/ days of the week. It had magnets, so I put on the side of fridge. He was on a three strikes your out program. If he got 3 strikes on any given day, he would lose electronics for a 24hr. Period. For good behavior he gets green checks. The goal is for him to get more green then red. If he has more green checks, then on Friday he gets to pick the restaurant out, and usually a trip to Target, or book store after. If he gets in trouble at school it reflects on chart. If he does something good, ie. no arguments about home work, chores, and staying on task with shower and bedtime. This worked great for me. He always got excited about the Friday night outings. If he didn’t earn them, he would get upset, but he learned to keep track of his red marks, and green marks. I think it helped him think about his behavior more. He’s 10, and I don’t really use it anymore. If he gets in trouble he knows the consequences. Hope this helps good luck!

[Softball25 in reply to Madmarie]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

[Pennywink]

Right now we are using a chart with 10 blank spaces & a list of 8 chores / desired behaviors (ready for school early, room is clean, etc.) When my son completes an activity in the list - correctly & on time - then he gets to put a dry erase mark on a space. If all 10 spaces are filled by Saturday morning, he gets to pick a reward coupon.

I have @ 10 coupons of various rewards (stay up late, extra tv, other things he really likes), though he only gets to pick from 3 that I select ahead of time. All checks are erased for the next week, whether he got 10 or not. All rewards coupons are also honored within the week.

We currently don’t have punishment incorporated into this system, just rewards.

[despi]

I currently have a chart with chores etc. For each category completed he gets a dot. Dot=5 min. Of computer time. If he misbehaves I can take away dots. The beauty is I can say no more computer earned and do more chores to earn more time. Thus curbing the technology monster!! To a degree.

[Kiandra]

If for school i uploaded 2 different charts 2 days ago. For home get a dry earse board.good luck

[Kiandra]

Or assist the child with making your own go to dollar tree look in the school -teacher section they have all types of neat stickers and stuff that'll be really fun and motivating

[Vickie109]

We call our system, a token reward system. We have a jar and use poker chips, but you could use anything similar. We have a list posted on the refrigerator with 2 columns. One is positive behavior, the other is Oops, I made a mistake. The positive column is much longer and includes many things he should already be doing in a day. The goal is to make sure he can earn more positive. He gets a chip for each one and loses a chip for a mistake. He can then turn the chips in for items we have on a reward list. It has worked really well for him. Adhd needs pretty immediate rewards, so he can turn in chips anytime. A small item he loves is making popcorn, a larger reward is something like going out to lunch. We also do a separate thing with important rules and consequences. That has worked well too.

[Pennywink in reply to Vickie109]

We did something very similar over the summer. I really liked it, but we have so many different caregivers, it was hard for the others to follow / stay consistent with.

[paradoxlive in reply to Vickie109]

I love the "Oops, I made a mistake" part! Way to take the sting out of - mistakes!

[paradoxlive]

We've got a system that works with school and home. My son's teacher gives him stars throughout the day for Organization, Doing His Work, and Following Directions. He's in second grade so last year the list was much longer, focusing on transitions as well. Next year - well, we'll see what needs attention! But the point is that for each star, he gets so many poker chips. They are the "Immediate Reward" as he can cash them in later but he LOVES getting his hands on those chips and adding them up. At home, we give him chips whenever we catch him doing the right thing or controlling his impulse to toss things, or whatever we see that we want to encourage. So the economy is positive reinforcement from school and at home. His rewards are things like screen time and money - like a black chip is worth $5. He has bought himself a few toys and I see him thinking hard about whether he wants to buy screen time or save money. Once we give him a chip, we do not take it away. The most commonly used negative consequence we use is no screen time. He keeps his chips but has lost the privilege of using them for a certain amount of time. Sometimes we let him earn back the privilege by cleaning up or doing something related to the infraction.

We've tried the magnetic whiteboard chart and well, none of us keep up with it! We're a family with ADHD and just aren't that organized. I'd rather put my effort into keeping organized with his schedule and such. But I know many people for whom that works as well. When we tried it, we did put things like shower in 20 minutes, out the door in the morning by 7:20... and it worked for a week or two - until we all forgot to keep up with it!

Best of luck finding what works for your family!