Lightening Online

I picked up this awesome idea from a friend of mine that we stayed with on our big trip.

It’s pretty simple and once set up, is easy to use.

I just used our own ideas for rewards and consequences.

Ours looks something like this:

My friend had a fancy big poster with the kids photo’s stuck to the chart.

I just printed off a simple table on the computer onto yellow paper then laminated it.  The kids each have one of their name stickers made into a small label that gets stuck onto the chart with blu tak and can be moved up and down as necessary.

Each chart cycle lasts for a week.  Whichever row they are on when it gets to Friday night bedtime is what they get (they don’t always get the reward or punishment imposed that night but it’s what we arrange for them as early as possible – for example, the lunch order has to wait until the next school day).  Saturday morning everyone returns to START and away we go again.

It’s working REALLY well for us.

The kids LOVE it.  They love getting to move themselves up on the chart when they’ve been particularly helpful or pleasant.  They HATE having to move themselves down on the chart (we get them to physically do it themselves to reinforce it) but appreciate the opportunity to “redeem” themselves if they’ve been acting up.

Farmboy is finding it really helpful because he’s sometimes at a loss as to what to do with the kids.  It can help defuse situations before they get fully blown.  And it seems to be helping him watch and reward the positive stuff (something that doesn’t come naturally if you’re not trained in doing it).

We try to focus more on the positive side of things as much as we can and so far the lowest anyone has finished has been the 1/2 hr earlier bedtime slot.  That doesn’t mean they don’t all move down the chart at some point or another but overall they mostly finish up at either START (which means they don’t get anything – positive OR negative) or above.

I love it too as the kids are really trying to hard to do the right thing and have a positive attitude to helping out around the house.  It suits me too when they choose a meal to have.  And it’s a way for them to “earn” having lunch orders.  We don’t usually have all that many but I like the idea of them “earning it”.

It’s possible that the novelty will wear off after a time.  And maybe at some point we’ll refresh it with some different rewards and consequences.  But we’ve been going for nearly 2 months now and it still seems to be going well.