I apologize for the lack of posts here lately, and after reading my post, you will probably be able to guess why I have been absent from the blogging world for awhile!
About a year ago, I came up with a magnetic reward system for Macy that she just absolutely loves.
We stuck with it for a month or so.
Her behavior improved immensely.
We gave it up.
That leads us to the past month or so of not so wonderful behavior coming out of my otherwise sweet little 4 year old.
She was very unwillingly cleaning her room when she stumbled upon her "Smiley Thing."
AND, I was like...Oh My Goodness, why on Earth did I not think of this earlier???
She is pumped to come up with new rewards to earn and even more pumped to start earning the rewards that we used last year again.
(Which is really funny to me, because we have been doing most of those "rewards" anyway, but the earning of them is the exciting part, I guess.)
Anyhow, here it is...the simplest, yet most exciting reward system to ever hit our household...
The Smiley Thing
1. Cut the silly smiles off of the box of Smiles fruit snacks...ya know the Walmart brand?
2. Glue them to magnets. I used the advertisement magnets that we had from pizza places and eye doctors located in the town that we no longer live in.
3. Put them on the inside of a metal cake pan.
4. When you catch your child doing something good, tell them to put a smile on the front on the pan.
5. When they get a predetermined amount of smiles on the front of the pan, they earn a prize.
6. I printed out pictures of prizes that Macy can earn. She picks one for each day and it goes on the refrigerator. They are things such as an extra book at bedtime, a trip to the park, or an extra special trip to her Granny's house.
One of the reasons this happens to be the best reward system for us is that it is extremely portable. We take it in the car wherever we go. It just doesn't work so well, if you have to remember to give smiles when you get back home from a long outing, so the smiles just come with us!
I hope this helps some of you. It sure works for us to reward the good rather than harp on the bad, and this is a reminder for parent and child alike...we want smiles at our house!!!