Clear Bonuses
Clear bonuses systematically build behaviors over time.
Successful incentive plans often allow for children to do less initially to earn rewards while as time increases the desired expectations are raised for a child to reach the reward.
Parents lose credibility quickly when they don’t follow through on awarding rewards or bonuses that were earned. Children with special needs have a harder time letting go of this, seeing the connection between their behavior and a reward delay and being flexible so parents with children with special needs to work even harder than other parents to be consistent.
Review behaviors consistently! Reward behaviors consistently!
Kids with attention, learning and social difficulties often need four to five times the number of rewards as do other children in order to be successful. Rewards can be super effective since they can excite the frontal lobe and reward center of the brain, which can positively impact dopamine.
Value giving bonuses as scheduled–You wouldn’t work for a boss who promises to pay you and then forgets or doesn’t follow through and your child won’t like this either.
It is critical to be consistent in following through on a plan and be dependable. You can think for yourself that if you were working for a paycheck and you only got paid some of the time that you wouldn’t be very motivated or very trusting toward your employer…It can be the very same principle with kids. The more consistent you are in tracking children’s behaviors and giving feedback the more children understand that you are taking their behavior reward plan seriously and that you are there to support them. When this happens, the more excited children can get as they see their positive behaviors increase.
We have witnessed how utilizing rewards has allowed hundreds of kids to have the opportunity to try new things that otherwise they might not have had the tools to do!
Whether it was because they were too scared to try something unfamiliar or unsure of the positive and negative consequences of stepping outside of their comfort zones, rewards can open up doors and foster positive skills that can have a lasting impact on kids. It is possible to teach a new skill, reinforce it with a bonus, and then fade out the bonuses over time. Rewards are not meant to be forever.
Reward Consistently!
If you clearly outline an expectation that has a bonus attached to it, it is vital that you follow through with the bonus. Kids notice when they do not earn what they were told they would earn. Your words matter, always, and it is important that you mean what you say and only say what you mean. Of course, parents are human and they will not be 100% consistent with this. In the real world, though, the more that a parent can be consistent, be clear in their language and expectations, use the same terms, phrases and scripting and acknowledge for their child if they said something unclear and clarify the better.
Kids always need opportunities to earn small and large bonuses. Also, don’t underestimate how special earned time with you is. This could be earned time reading a book together or playing a game together. There is also something truly special when you give a child a bonus they were not expecting when you acknowledge something positive you notice that they did.
No harsh and inconsistent punishment:
The other thing that we will say about dependability is that it is crucial to never engage in harsh and inconsistent punishment when a child struggles. This means that regardless of what type of system you use whether it’s stickers, marbles, points, coupons, etc. when a child messes up even if it is a large mistake or error you do not want to be harsh and inconsistent in delivering a consequence and remove what they have earned. Just as you would never want your paycheck to be removed for the week as this would be unmotivating to the point that you would likely quit, the same is true that your child won’t likely perform for you if you empty their marble jar, rip their sticker chart off the wall, delete all their points, etc.
For children with learning and processing difficulties it often takes more repetition to build skills and children have more difficulty than their peers making connections between cause and effect. This is important because children with these difficulties often struggle more to see the impact of their specific behavior such as I made negative choice X, which resulted in this negative consequence occurring. Due to this, it is important to be consistent, have visual plans and agreements at times and have consistency so children are more likely to attribute the cause and effect of their behaviors correctly.
Reward Intermittently
Reward programs also can include intermittent rewards such as bonuses that are given randomly throughout the week that are only possible to be earned for kids who are currently making a positive choice such as following a direction or have already made their bed if this is an expectation for example. This behavioral reinforcement principle is actually why gambling is so addictive. For example, slot machines work this way since people will spend dollar after dollar and only once in a while do they get a big payout, but that payout is so reinforcing that then they often become really addicted and will keep gambling to try and get another big payout.
Flipping this behavioral concept in a more positive way, you want kids to have that same type of excitement about your program and the possibility of what they could earn at any moment. When you reward your child with an unexpected bonus because you caught them doing a good job at something that they didn’t expect they feel great and will keep doing that behavior more often even when you payout less frequently. You can do this with lots of things like giving a big bonus for things like noticing that your child has organized his or her school notebook, he or she walked away from a sibling when staying in close proximity could have made a situation worse, or that your child engaged in some mindfulness or relaxation strategy such as taking a deep breath unprompted, etc.
Shaping
While rewards are highly beneficial, it is important to note that rewards will never be enough when there is a skill issue at play.
If a child has a skill deficit (does not do a task, does a task but does not do it independently, only does the task when told to) it does not matter how big the bonus is or how much motivation they have.
Oftentimes you have to break a skill or behavior down into small components for a child to be successful. It is important to teach those small components even if you feel like they “should” know certain components already. What you know for sure is that this child is not demonstrating a skill or behavior at an appropriate level, or at all, so every single step is important to include.
When teaching the components of a task or a behavior you will likely need to use many verbal or visual prompts, praise and reinforcements. Using these tools can allow for kids to build up confidence in stepwise success and then they’re ready to tackle much bigger things.
Shaping Example for Chores:
A classic home example of teaching a child to demonstrate a skill or behavior would be breaking down a chore, such as doing the dishes, into multiple steps including:
- Taking ALL the dishes to the sink,
- Place dishes in the sink
- Rinse dishes thoroughly (give visual example of what thoroughly LOOKS like)
- Load the dishwasher
- Plates on the bottom rack
- Silverware in the silverware container
- Cups on the top rack
- Put 1 Tablespoon of detergent into detergent square (Give visual of this)
- Push the start button
For this type of task, you might teach every single part, model it, have a visual with step-by-step instructions and you might possibly include pictures depending on the skill level of your child. Reinforcing each step along the way to make sure that your child can do them adequately and has the necessary skills is important. You might find that your child is capable of taking all of the dishes to the sink, placing the dishes into the sink, and rinsing them but when it comes time to load them into the dishwasher they are putting cups in the silverware rack or silverware on the bottom rack. So in this case, you would have your child complete steps 1-3, praise them, and then teach them how to do step 4. Go through steps 1-4 until they are successfully able to complete step 4 without your help before moving on to step 5. Repeat the process with step 5 if your child does not know how to properly complete step 5.
Shaping Example for School:
A typical example of teaching a skill or behavior, such as submitting an assignment through an online portal, in a virtual classroom might be:
- Log into portal using your username and password
- Click on “Assignments” Page on the top left corner (give visual)
- Double click on the assignment to open it
- Click the “Download” button on the top right (give visual)
- Open your Download folder on your computer and double click the assignment
- Complete the assignment fullyReview your work at least one time
- Click the “Submit” button on the bottom right (give visual)
For this example, it also would be important to potentially practice all of the steps with prompts, reinforcement and praise, provide visuals and support.
Prompting
Prompting is used in order to support kids in achieving a desired behavior vs. a non desirable behavior. There are many types of prompting, but for our purposes it makes sense to go over the main two–verbal and visual prompts.
We often start with a verbal prompt. For example, if we know that a child struggles with remembering to put their homework in their backpack every day, we might verbally remind them to put their homework into their backpack.
Another way to prompt a child is to give them a visual prompt. So instead of verbally reminding them, they have a big paper visual taped to the front door that says “Remember your homework!!” in big letters and bright font. You might also gesture to this visual prompt instead of verbally reminding them.
Don’t Remove Rewards!
Don’t remove rewards when you are mad; delay, don’t remove, just as you decide on rewards prior to setting structure do the same with reward delay.
Pro tips to avoid harsh and inconsistent punishments:
- It can be very important and helpful that you might delay for your child when they can cash in points, or their marbles for a reward. Delays might mean that a pizza party or a trip to the treasure box isn’t cancelled if it was earned, but delayed until you see the behavior you need. It is important to be clear about what you are looking for so that children don’t think it is ambiguous of how long the delay will last. For example, “You have still earned your trip to the treasure box. Unfortunately we can’t open the treasure box until I see (whole body listening, a calm body, you have filled out your accountability sheet with at least 3 sentences, etc).”
- Don’t discipline when you’re angry blurting out whatever you think of on the fly. Instead we are big fans of the phrase, “You have just earned a consequence for this unexpected behavior, but you will hear about it when you and I are both (calm, ready to speak at a regular volume, back in the blue zone, etc.).”
- It also can be a huge benefit to have rewards and consequences clearly laid out ahead of time. It can be very important for parents to meet outside of the time that negative behavior is occurring to decide on appropriate bonuses and consequences. Preferably this can be done prior to an incident for many typical reoccuring behaviors. This is a strategy we use all the time in our work with children and it is a lifesaver. For us, we have a clear point structure, opportunities for other reinforcements, procedures for handle challenging negative behaviors that are likely to be seen prior to our children arriving at our program. Children are also given clear information about these potential bonuses and also consequences prior to their occurrence, which typically is very helpful.
- Use a cool down for an upset child instead of reward removal
Expectation Management
To effectively measure behavior:
- First be clear and specific about what the expectation is
- Observe or track behaviors in a way where it is possible to notice changes in behavior.
- Have clear times when the behaviors that are being tracked are clearly measured for kids. We recommend a minimum of once per day since this can be really helpful for kids and they desperately need the feedback.
Tips!
- We recommend setting a certain time of day where tracking and feedback is naturally built into the schedule. This could be at a set daily time such as during or after dinner or before bedtime. For certain types of reward programs it might be right before your child would earn a potential daily bonus.
- For tracking behaviors such as follow directions, being kind in words to a sibling, speaking in a calm tone, etc. it often is best to pick a time in the day to track this specific behavior for 30 minutes during the morning routine or during chore time. Otherwise it can be too hard to give feedback, especially when a child shows the behavior intermittently.
Non-Preferred Activities:
In our work with families we often find that an area where dishonesty occurs regularly is having children lie about a non-preferred activity. We believe this is so common for children with attention and learning difficulties since lying in this case is a means to try and avoid a non-preferred task such as completing homework or a chore since this is often such a painful and stressful time for children. Avoidance can often be a key function of behavior for many non-preferred activities.
Strategies to Combat Non-Preferred Activities:
We find what typically works best for children is to get out of the trap of asking children if they have homework or not or if they have done their chore yet since this type of questioning creates an opportunity for children to say they don’t have homework or that they have already completed a chore when they haven’t. Instead, we recommend for parents to set a clear structure for how homework assignments or chores are handled everyday.
This structure starts with statements such as
- “Show me what you have for homework today”
- “Show me your progress on your chore.”
versus questions such as
- “Do you have homework today?”
- “Did you complete your chore yet?”
Making it a requirement that each assignment or task is shown directly to the parent each day as a step of the homework time or responsibilities structure also helps versus just letting children say their work is complete.
Children will show through their behavior by their consistent successes in these areas that they are ready for more autonomy and less checking up from parents.
Continue to teach your child important family values regarding honesty.
To be clear, we are not recommending that you don’t teach your children family values regarding honesty and give your child practice in this area, but we have found that often honesty improves for children over time (often in conjunction with more developmental brain growth). In addition, we feel that the negativity associated with creating negative daily interchanges with kids around non-preferred activities due to an extra component regarding honesty often upsets the 5 positives to 1 negative ratio that we are always trying to hit. The more that a parent can stack the deck in their favor the better.
