When child behavior experts speak about changing behavior, often they lapse into a philosophical discussion about modifying behavior. At times these discussions, while valuable, can become generalizations about behavior change, rather than discussing the specifics about individualized tools to change behavior.

Many parents that I speak with “get” why behavior modification is important, they understand many of the principles involved, they recognize that there are healthy as well as unhealthy ways to go about it, and they can see how positive behavior change can benefit their children and themselves.

Sometimes when parents are searching for a solution for their child’s bad or inappropriate behavior they can get so caught up in the various arguments and counterarguments about parenting methods, techniques and tips that you can almost hear them crying out:

“I just want to know what tools are out there to help me change my child’s behavior?”

Effective tools to help change behavior

Any information and knowledge that can make you a better parent is fantastic, but sometimes parents have heard enough and just want a tangible product or tools for behavior change, that they can start using right away.

The tools and strategies for behavior change that I have used successfully with my children include reward charts, behavior contracts, token economy, sticker charts, lucky dip rewards, and “I Did It!” certificates. While I sell some of these fantastic ready-to-go products on this website, with a bit of creativity, materials and effort you can make your own easily enough. Or you can get some of our great free reward charts here.

You can check out the articles below for further ideas on tools to change behavior.

Reward or discipline your children anywhere…anytime with our specially designed token economy!

Fundamentally a Token Economy is a form of behavior modification whereby tokens are rewarded for appropriate behavior and the tokens may be cashed in for valued rewards.

Just think about it… your child listens well ….. does what they’re told …. acts kindly towards others …… plays well with their brother……. shares their toys … packs up after themselves …. in fact whenever they behave well they earn a token, they collect them, and they get to spend their tokens on valued rewards.

Maybe you are already using a token economy system. Your child does their chores and they earn their pocket money at the end of the week. If we break this token economy down further we can see that there is an expectation on your child, your child fulfils this expectation and then rewarded for doing so. Not so different from the adult world right? We operate in our own token economy – we work, or we keep house, or we choose to be stay-at-home parents. We complete these commitments and we earn money through wages, allowances, advances, benefits or whatever else and the reward is we get to accumulate, spend or donate this money however we choose – in every sense this should be considered a token economy.

Why Using a Token Economy is So Great

• A great way to improve behavior… positively!
• A token economy system can be extremely beneficial to our kids.
• It can help kids focus on improving behavior.
• Using a token economy system gives kids the power to “own” their behavior both good and bad.
• Teaches the importance of delayed gratification.
• Allows kids to be responsible for their behavior.
• A token economy is a great strategy to use with older children, as well as the younger age groups.
• Is a proven effective strategy for parents…
• … and using a token economy is simply great fun!

Using behavior contracts along with a token economy can also be a great guide and focus to both you, as a parent, and your child. These behavior contracts allow us to be very specific about expectations. It can be a great opportunity to sit down together and brainstorm about expected behaviour, unacceptable behaviour, and about what rewards may be on offer. They can be a fantastic way of laying a foundation for the use of a token economy. Behavior contracts require acknowledgment by parent and child (our behavior contracts require a signature by both which can make the behavior contract more “official”). These work well with both older and younger kids.

A token economy is great for us parents as well. It gives us a chance to really watch out for our child’s good behaviour and immediately reward it. I’m a parent and I know how often my children can be annoying, inappropriate, or rude and sometimes I’m so focused on bad behavior that I neglect or don’t even notice their good behavior – their small acts of kindnesses, their sharing, their thoughtfulness or simply their doing as they’re told. By using a token economy we can reward such behavior immediately. We can improve our child’s behavior, manage the tension of the household and most importantly we can help to improve our child’s self-esteem.

If you’ve browsed around our website you might have come across our reward chart rules which in the main also apply to our Star Coins token economy and behavior contracts. The key to using a token economy is to Be Positive, Be Consistent, Be Realistic and Be Fair.

If you use your imagination there are many ways that you can implement a token economy. You can make your own tokens, or tickets, or you can even cut out paper shapes to hand out. You can also make your own behavior contracts. Of course here at RewardingKids.com we have our very own Star Coins token economy for sale.

We have designed and developed our token economy to be great quality, durable, fun and plentiful (130 quality, plastic tokens can go a long way!)

If you’ve been browsing through my site you would’ve caught onto the importance I believe a well structured reward plan has in shaping behavior. A behavior contract can play a very effective role in any reward plan (along with reward charts and a token economy).

A behavior contract can be be a useful behavior modification tool when other methods aren’t working so well, and it can give your child a sense of being involved in a serious, grown-up process. This can be flattering to many children as it shows them that you are prepared to enter into a negotiation with them, and sign off on your agreement.

Why a Behavior Contract Can Work So Well

• A behavior contract allows your child to negotiate the “terms of the contract”. This is particularly useful for older children.
• The contract spells it out in black-and-white what is expected and what will be awarded.
• It allows your child to feel more in control of their behavior choices.
• The behavior contract can help structure the behavior patterns of your child and gives them a great opportunity for self-management.
• As with any good reward plan, such as using reward charts for children, a behavior contract teaches delayed gratification.
• Because the contract clearly defines what is expected of your children, family tension and arguments over on-going behavioral problems tend to dissipate.

How to Use Behavior Contracts

• Be clear as to your requirements and when they must be met. But remember if your child negotiates reasonable changes, then apply them – that’s the art of negotiation after all, and gives your child the required sense of control.
• Fill out the behavior contract and have both you and your child sign off on it. This act of signing off can really pass on the importance, expectation and “seriousness” of the contract.
• Follow through, be specific, be consistent, be positive, and don’t overwhelm your child with type and number of expected behavior changes. In fact most of the rules regarding reward charts for children will directly apply to using a behavior contract.
• Whatever agreements have been made regarding the adherence to behavior contracts should ALWAYS be followed through.

Examples of Behavior Contract Agreements

• “I will brush my teeth every morning and night” / “We will provide a movie night at the end of every week”
• “I will put all my dirty clothes in the clothes hamper as soon as I change” / “We will allow an extra 10 minutes of playtime before bed”
• “When I feel like hitting my brother, I will walk away to another room until I calm down” / “We will provide your choice of dinner and dessert once a week”
• “I will dress myself in the morning” / “We will provide an extra 5 minutes of story-time when it’s time for bed”
• As you can see these types of agreements are specific and achievable. Of course the behavior you wish to tackle will be specific to your child and family situation.

The beauty of a behavior contract is that they can be easily adapted and used for younger children as well as older children. The examples above would be more suited to younger children but the contracts can be as sophisticated as you would like (or what is appropriate). For example with an older child the agreement might be “I will complete all my school assignments and hand them in on time during this semester” and your response may be “We will provide a PlayStation game of choice at the the end of semester”.

Good luck with your endeavors, and I would love to hear about any of your behavior contract successes.

Behavior modification is an easy concept to grasp, but it tends to be much more difficult to actually put behavior modification techniques into practice. Actually to be more accurate, I should add that it can be much more difficult to effectively put these techniques into action.

For example using the method of timeout as a technique for behavior modification is very easy to implement. ie. a child misbehaves and the parent sends them to their room for 15 minutes. In theory this is correct in that the child has been removed from a situation following bad behavior, and placed in a timeout area for a particular amount of time. In practice however, the effectiveness of this behavior modification technique will be diminished because the timeout has been poorly strategized and implemented (In this example a child’s room is filled with distractions and stimulation’s, and 15 minutes is way too long).

Behavior modification techniques such as timeout, positive discipline, modeling, loss of privileges, positive reinforcement and so on, are only as effective as we allow them to be. Parents need knowledge, consistency, support and patience to make such techniques work effectively. Often this is where the difficulty comes into beginning and maintaining such plans and techniques.

Having the desire to correct bad behavior in a healthy and positive way is a great starting point. The articles below (based on various behavior modification techniques) can hopefully give you some insights and tips to make the process as effective as possible.