I've been working on finding the right encouragement system for my 7-year old. First we just had her doing work, and she wasn't that excited about it. Then I made sheets where she gets a stamp for every page she finishes. Each page full of stamps is worth $1. But THAT wasn't working! She's at that age where as soon as she gets money she wants to go spend it. But her $1 plus her allowance ($6 total) wasn't enough to buy her the toys she wanted. Each trip to the toy aisle at the store resulted in a meltdown, her upset that she didn't have enough money...or upset she we didn't take her to the store...and US upset over the whole thing! Plus she'd eventually walk out with junk she never played with. So now I went out and bought the Littlest Pet Shop VIP that she wanted. I put it in the China cabinet right by where she works so she can see it behind the glass but can't touch it or play with it. We are setting goals for the week for each subject. For each goal she makes she gets $1 of "Homeschool Cash" The VIP is worth $10 of Homeschool Cash. She can earn up to $5 in Homeschool Cash per week. I may also buy a few little toys and put prices on them too. I hope this works. It's goal-oriented, not based on the number of pages she does so she can focus on what she can DO, not busy work. Also, the reward is there so she can see it, unlike the toy aisle which is a disaster waiting to happen! And no taking her to the store to "pick out" something and have her asking for more! Fingers crossed this works!
I too have an incentive, but it also includes chores. Mine will get a chip everytime she finishes school, homework, a chore and the number of chips depends on what she does. Free reading gets her more chips than let say brushing her teeth, to encourage it. She brushes her teeth anyway. Then depending on the amount of chips she can pick from a bin with the value on it. I have several bins. Going to the store didn't work either. I pre-bought items to put in the bins. It encourages her to save if she wants it. TV time must also be bought with chips. It's working pretty darn good.
We have done this in the past and it DID work!! We used play money and had a box of treats.. each one had a value, and was listed in a notebook. Wonder why I stopped this??? I do know most of what ODS wants these days is EXPENSIVE for just one thing.. you know Legos, video games etc... maybe that had something to do with it. Man I could fill it with candy and he would be happy.
we used to do this too, but they got older and the prizes to earn got more expensive... eventually we all got too busy with doing the work and doing life, so we forgot about it.
So far so good! SD is excited about the VIP in the case and has gotten two "Homeschool dollars" so far! I typed up a graph and put the goal in the space instead of stars. Now she can check of the things she can do! Positive results so far, but it has only been a week!
