Last month I noticed a major change in Brady’s behavior and attitude. My sweet little guy was talking back, kicking, hitting, and just overall not a joy to be around. I am not a big advocate of spanking, and let’s face it – timeouts are more for the adult when the kid is close to school age. I will send Brady to his room for a timeout when I can feel my own temper escalating, and yes, it is always related to his behaviors. So I researched my options, read a few articles, and thought about Brady’s personality overall. He is a “pleaser” type of kid. That is why his behavior in August was surprising. Now, he does have some drama in his life right now due to custody stuff. But overall he seems pretty well adjusted to all of that.
My final decision was to go to the store and buy a roll of tickets. Brady earns tickets and he looses tickets. I wanted to make it realistic, so even if he was having a TERRIBLE day, he still could have some success. So I made a list of “ticket earning” behaviors and a list of behaviors that would make him owe me a ticket. For example, going to bed without a fight earns a ticket (this has never been an issue, so I knew he would always get one ticket at the end of the day anyway).
Other ticket earning behaviors include proper manners, listening the first time, obeying the rules, staying in his room in the morning until mama comes to get him, and others. He owes me a ticket if he kicks, hits, throws anything in the car, talks back, or several other inappropriate behaviors. He then can use his tickets to purchase play dates with friends, eating a special treat such as ice cream or krimpets, going to drive a go-kart, or whatever he wishes. But if he doesn’t have enough tickets, we don’t do it.
The key here was to NOT make it a lot of items that would cost me a lot of money or time (both of which are difficult). So most items are freebies. One day he even paid to play at his train table, which he though it was fun to hand over the two tickets to “pay.”
So far the ticketing system has WORKED. Brady’s manners have returned – yeah! It is funny though because he will say “Excuse me mama, my I please have some butter for my toast? Hey – I think that earned me two tickets.” So, he is always thinking about his tickets. And my favorite part is I can alter them and use them as needed. So if he is having a difficult time sitting in circle time at cub scouts, I can tell him he will get a ticket each time he sits in circle time or lose a ticket each time he doesn’t sit. So it is a win-win system.
It does take a little work on my part to transfer tickets from his bag to my bag of tickets. But he enjoys it, I enjoy that my child is listening, and boy does it work! Man, when I tell him he lost a ticket…….. Let’s just say he runs to his room and closes the door quietly (he knows slamming a door would cost another ticket) and just lays there and sulks for a bit. It beats yelling at him, spanking him, or many other options. There is no fighting, just a simple “you lost a ticket.” And the best part is that his ticket earning potential is all within his own power, and I make sure he knows that and he knows that mama believes that he can earn a TON of tickets everyday.