Awards for behaviour

I went into our dollars and sense shop yesterday and came upon the neatest idea.

In there they had award ribbons, disney brand ones with characters like mickey etc and pooh bear and friends. and each award was for different things, ie, a bath time award, a good listening award, good helper award, clean room award, star student award etc. heaps of various ones, some were for birthdays etc, others were for learning to count to 10 i think it was, they had another for learning the alphabet.

Anyway, I grabbed a few of the ones that fitted the areas that we sometimes have trouble with, one being the bath (especially with ayja, sometimes she just packs it for no reason).    

Anyway, today, after doing ayja's hair and finding 1 wee "crawly friend" in there (and uttering a few million choice words)and only a couple of eggs thank goodness. We of course did the hair blitz, and bath and wash hair etc. She was sure to go nuts i thought, i was waiting for a really crap time of it. But nooooo, she actually was great, through the wet-combing, hair treatment, whole bath and hair washing (which the hair washing alone is usually enough to tip her off as she hates water in her ears), and through getting dressed, which is another time when she sparks off for no reason..

Paris on the other hand thought it was wholly unfair to have to go thru it all when "she didn't even have them" and whinged and performed all the way through the "ordeal".

So once they were dressed, I pulled the bath time ribbon out, and told Ayja that she had earnt this ribbon today and what for. She was so proud beyond beleif, and went and used the string attached to it to hang on her door.   

So it's great, it reinforced her behaviour for the good time, without being bribed into it, and the do know that i have other ones, but not which ones. I told them they will have to wait and see.   We have made rules that when the are awarded the ribbon they get to keep it on their bedroom door handle for the rest of that day so that they, and everyone can see it, and then mummy gets it back to use another day when she sees fit. but they're only for outstand-amazing stuff, not just marginal behaviour.

I just thought i'd share in case anyone else was looking for incentives. I have been looking for something "concrete" to give them as rewards for ages, I don't like using "treats" or lollies etc, and these I thought were a great idea.



If anyone was wanting some and can't find them as well, I'd be happy to grab some and send them to you.

Edited by mum2paris

funnily enough - Paris was far better when her hair was down to nearly her knees than she is now with it at shoulder length!

I think that is a fantastic idea!!! I actually wish Maddie was old enough to do it with!