Monday, September 28, 2009

Rewards

As a Developmental therapist, I had to use a lot of incentives for the kids I worked with.
Something that worked great for a reward was mini M&M’s. They are small and you can give them to the child RIGHT when they perform the job or task you have set out for them. And when they get an instant reward, they want to do the good deed or task more often.

We had to really work with the parents of the children to do the same thing at home though.
The parents were giving their children rewards that were MUCH too large. With children, you don’t want to EVER make the reward too big. They will either expect that every time, or (over time) they will want something bigger and better. Always start out with SMALL rewards.

Now if the child wants to work up to something Large, that is fine, but make sure they have to work a long time, getting small rewards (such as mini M&M’s) for small mile stones in the mean time.
They will learn that if they want something really big, they have to work really hard. (Something I think a lot of kids today don’t quite understand)

What we teach our children now, will be a HUGE factor in how they see the world and work in it later. I want my kids to know that they need to work hard for the things they want. They should NEVER expect anything without putting forth a lot of effort.

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