Prize Time

One week in to Corbin's reward chart, he was still at only 4 stars, even though he had the opportunity to earn 3 stars per day.  Between taking them away, and not earning them it was a tough go.  So, we decided to sweeten the pot and offer a new toy at only 10 stars rather than 30.  It worked and Monday night we stopped by the store so Corbin could pick out a new toy.  He instantly picked out this Nerf dart game.  I have a personal issue with bringing home guns of any sort.  Because of this, I quickly turned down the next aisle which happened to be the Lego aisle.  He LOVED the Star Wars Legos, but the one he wanted was over $30, a bit out of the price range for this prize.  After asking several times for the "Star Wars gun" as he called the Nerf dart game I gave in.  After all, the deal was his choice, right?  Mike has played with it several times so at least there's some father/son bonding going on with this "gun". 

The implementation of this reward chart had an unintended result.  It clearly put the ownership of Corbin's behavior and the choices he made on him.  I hadn't realized how much responsibility I had felt for his lack of listening and back talk.  As soon as we did the chart, the responsibility was clearly his.  Bad choices = no star / good listening and no back talk = Star and one step closer to a reward.  Looking back, potty training took much of the same course.  Once we stopped reminding him and asking him if he needed to use the bathroom (i.e. owning the responsibility) the number of accidents were greatly reduced.  Hmmm, I think we're on to something; for Corbin anyway.  I'm sure Garrett will be totally different and we'll have to think up something else.