I’m on the lookout for ways to reward my kids that reinforce our family values. I was super excited last year to read about Daddy Dollars in Family Fun magazine and wrote a post about it here. These types of ideas are hard for me to stick with for a number of reasons. I don’t always have them with me when a child earns one; they try to interrupt an important project or time with another child to turn the dollars in; and I wonder sometimes if they take the dollars from each other or the bank–gasp! Because it seems like they have more than I remember them earning at times.
It’s worth persevering with the system though, because it really motivates my children! I’m making some changes this year that should make this a lot easier on mom.
1. A chart of what earns a daddy dollar. For example, Getting up, bed made, dressed and breakfast by 8:00 = 1 Daddy dollar. All music practiced by 9:30 = 1 more daddy dollar. And I’ve left myself a random act of kindness clause that lets me reward daddy dollars any time I see fit.
2. A chart of what they can redeem their daddy dollars on. For example 1 piece of gum or candy is $5. An extra hour of computer time is $30. A friend over to play is $50. Family to dinner at Pizza Street is $100 daddy dollars. I try to make the rewards in tangible for the most part–and activities I wish we would do as a family but rarely make time for.
3. A specific time to reward and accept payment of Daddy dollars. We are going to tally up at dinner each night. This way our children will be rewarded in front of an audience and it helps build excitement for dinner time where we all sit down together. This means I don’t have to keep the dollars with me all the time or constantly be interrupted during the day to deal with them. They learn delayed gratification even if just for a few hours.
4. A record sheet. I will let the children hang on to their dollars, but I plan to keep track of what each child earns. That way if a child comes up with $200 daddy dollars but they only earned $40, I’ll know a character issue needs addressed without falsely accusing someone.
Can they pool their money and share the reward? Maybe I shouldn’t be giving them such ideas! 🙂
What a great idea! I do a similar thing with my son for summer enrichment, except there’s nothing tangible to give him. He earns points for doing various things and I keep track of the points on a chart. Once he reaches a certain point level, he can redeem the prize for that level. We also do Bible Bucks at my church, and we open the Bible Bucks store monthly for the kids to “buy” stuff. It’s a hit!
Are you ever concerned that working for a reward/praise becomes the aim rather than doing what is right? Moreover, do you find this important because most of the family’s time is spent in the home with only one parent? I ask in earnest – not to be critical in any way. Charts and records seem like a lot of work for the parent, especially in this case where the temptation to cheat/steal can be huge for young children who really want that reward. Perhaps it is just my lack of organization or relative parenting inexperience, but keeping track of a regimented system of rewards seems so daunting.
A simple set of daily expectations discussed regularly (perhaps at dinner time) might be given more priority if each week (Sunday maybe) each child sets a personal goal/prize and as a family choose a bigger goal for any week that everyone consistently meets every expectation (a day-trip or special treat like pizza delivery and ice cream). Over the course of the week surprises can come up – picnics in the back yard, slip’n’slide/sprinkler time – that anyone who met the expectations may do. Anyone who shirked duties earlier will need to complete their duties before participating (He’ll come like a thief in the night, right?). Just my thoughts on it. I’ll be interested to hear more about how this plays out for you guys. I really liked the game you suggested yesterday, by the way!
Renee, The goal in parenting is to move the children towards intrinsic rewards–doing what’s right for the sake of it being right. But for a young child the pain of doing something distasteful to them can outweigh the good feeling of doing it because it’s the right thing to do. We can help them with an outside reward system to train their brains to give off good chemicals when they do what’s right. After awhile they won’t need the outside reward anymore.
I espeically love this system because it’s an immediate reward (even though I save the passing out until dinner, I can say–Wow! That’s a daddy dollar!) that doesn’t cost me anything and isn’t candy, and they learn how to handle money at the same time.
The maintenance on it is the downside, but taking care of it at dinner instead of sporatically throughout the day will make it better.
I am anxious to get started using this system. I have 7 1/2 year old triplets and a 12 year old. When do you allow your children to “cash in” their daddy bucks? I was thinking on every Friday – Sunday. How do you do yours?
Thanks, Mary
Mary, Wow Triplets! We do ours in the evening. They can trade in at the dinner table, but no other time of day. Just because they cash out then, doesn’t mean they get their reward right away. If it’s inviting a friend over we schedule it then, but wait to do it until it fits into the schedule.