At the end of the week, each kid counts his stars and gets a coin (quarter, dime, nickel or penny) for each star he earned and puts the coins in his piggy bank. After an undefined amount of time, each kid takes her coins to the bank to deposit half and takes the other half to a store of her choice to spend it on something she wants.
Some goals, like Cal's "Get Dressed" and Ella's "Go to Bed and Stay in Bed" are easy to assess as there's really no room for interpretation. Others, like Ella's "Say Please and Thank You" and Cal's "No Harming Others" require some leeway, are not quantifiable and are subject to the moods of Dan and me, the ultimate judges of good behavior in this household. We do accept the kids' input, which, over time, has actually become pretty consistent with our own opinions, as in:
Some goals, like Cal's "Get Dressed" and Ella's "Go to Bed and Stay in Bed" are easy to assess as there's really no room for interpretation. Others, like Ella's "Say Please and Thank You" and Cal's "No Harming Others" require some leeway, are not quantifiable and are subject to the moods of Dan and me, the ultimate judges of good behavior in this household. We do accept the kids' input, which, over time, has actually become pretty consistent with our own opinions, as in:
Me: "Ella, did you use mean words today?"
Ella: "Yes."
Me: "Yeah, you used a lot of 'potty' words. Should you get a star?"
Ella (smiling): "Nooooo."
We've been doing this latest round of reward chart activity for a good couple of months now. Neither Leatherkid has had a 42-star week, the maximum possible. I'd say typically Ella's in the upper teens and Cal's in the lower twenties, an unimpressive feat, if these numbers even qualify as a "feat."
With half the possible stars being the norm, Dan and I were feeling like our reward chart system is ineffective. Minimally, it was time for the kids to cash in on whatever was in their banks, which happened to coincide with Cal's bank being too full to fit any more coins in it (it's small, really). Today, Columbus Day, was a perfect day to do that... well, kind of.
I took the day off to stay home with Cal who did not have school today because of the holiday. We sent Ella to school (preschool) because... well... it was just better that we do that. Before we did so, though, we committed to picking her up early (post-nap early) to cash in on the coins in their banks and hit the store.
My day with Cal went fantastically -- it was easy, had no hiccups and was actually pretty fun for both of us. When I realized just before we were leaving to pick Ella up from school that it was Columbus Day and banks would be closed, I figured our perfect day could not be disrupted -- there was an alternative in Jewel.
Cal and I picked Ella up from school, and then the three of us made our way with the kids' piggy banks to the Jewel in the neighborhood where I knew there was a Coinstar, not that I've ever used it or really knew how it worked.
By the way, it was raining.
When we got to the Coinstar inside our Jewel, I had to read the instructions. With Ella screaming at me to pick her up or, really, I'm not even sure what she was so upset about, I could only concentrate so much and managed to figure out that I either could get a voucher for our coins but at a fee OR put our coins toward a gift (e-) certificate at no fee. The latter wouldn't work because we needed to deposit half of each kid's money into their savings accounts; and I didn't like the former because, well, a fee?
So we walked to the other side of Jewel where we found that the TCF was open but that they didn't have a coin counter.
"Are banks open today?" I asked.
"Well, we are," the girl responded and then told us the closest TCF with a coin counter.
So off the kids and I were to first see if "our" bank was open (it wasn't), to see if another bank on the block was open (it wasn't) and then to head to the closest TCF with a coin counter, which was about 15-20 minutes away.
I'm sure there was another option -- I just didn't know it.
When we arrived at the Jewel with the TCF with a coin counter, it was pouring rain. Of course. The image of me carrying two full, ceramic piggy banks in the rain as I repeated the phrase, "stay close to Mommy" to my likely-to-stray-in-a-parking-lot kids and then dropping one of the banks triggered my thinking I should come up with an alternative to getting us inside. I threw (gently) the piggy banks into Ella's backpack with her fleece separating the two and unloaded the kids. I carried Ella and her backpack, and Cal walked alongside me (he's good about that); and we made our way in the rain into the Jewel.
Once inside, we moved swiftly thanks to me. I didn't want Ella to have any time to realize how wet she was.
"Do you have a coin counter?" I asked the TCF banker who, without flashing a smile and quite possibly without saying a word, pointed us to the coin counter just past her counter.
"Thanks." I said, setting Ella down on the ground and continuing past the counter, believing the coin counter was actually nearby. It was.
There were two buttons - a Start/Stop and a Print -- and maybe a 4-bullet list of instructions, which I followed to a tee, this time with Ella just clamoring to participate in the counting of her coins, which was more realistic than the Coinstar machine given this TCF coin counter was Ella's height.
Emptying a piggy bank full of coins is a skill that, really, only an adult can do... it's certainly not something that a toddler can do in a reasonable amount of time. I declared I'd empty Ella's coins into the tray and she could push them into the counter, and this was surprisingly met without a fight.
As the machine counted her coins, I saw the sign -- TCF would charge a 8+% fee for non-TCF customers cashing in on coins. Whatever, I conceded, remembering that surcharge that Coinstar would have charged us maybe a half hour earlier.
With all of her coins counted, we printed Ella's voucher and then went through the same process with the coins in Cal's piggy bank.
We took our vouchers back to the TCF banker to cash them in with the same, non-smiling banker we had encountered when we first arrived. Next to her was another banker, an older man, focused on some paperwork at the counter.
The non-smiling TCF banker asked me if I bank at TCF, and I responded grudgingly that I didn't; and she told me that there'd be a fee. "Okay," I said and then turned my attention to my kids who had wandered down a nearby aisle. As I coaxed them back to the counter, the man walked over to the non-smiling banker and said something to her, I wasn't exactly sure what at the time. The next thing I knew, the TCF banker was giving each of my kids the full value of their coins -- no fee and delivered thoughtfully in increments that would make them feel like they had a lot of money.
I thanked her enough that she knew that I appreciated what she had done. It was the right thing for her to do. That was my kids' hard-earned money and they deserved to get every bit of it before they're aware of how the world works.
Ella had already picked a small stuffed animal to buy from Jewel. We stood in line so she could buy it (she handed the cashier her money), and then headed back to the car so we could hit our end destination... the store of choice for this round of reward-chart-money purchases... my personal favorite (though it's becoming more manageable)... Toys 'R Us, where Ella found the thing she wanted to buy with the remainder of her spendable money after only ten steps into the store and where Cal did a lot of analysis and negotiating in the Legos section of the store before deciding what he wanted to buy.
And then we took our "toys" to the checkout where the kids checked out separately. Ella bought her unicorn pillow and Cal bought his Chima Legos sets.
As I write this, I'm sitting across from the fridge where the kids' reward charts hang. I see six stars on Cal's Monday column and five stars on Ella's. I hold out hope that cashing in and seeing some tangible benefits (toys) to their good behavior will have a positive effect on their behavior and that we'll see star counts into the thirties and forties.
With half the possible stars being the norm, Dan and I were feeling like our reward chart system is ineffective. Minimally, it was time for the kids to cash in on whatever was in their banks, which happened to coincide with Cal's bank being too full to fit any more coins in it (it's small, really). Today, Columbus Day, was a perfect day to do that... well, kind of.
I took the day off to stay home with Cal who did not have school today because of the holiday. We sent Ella to school (preschool) because... well... it was just better that we do that. Before we did so, though, we committed to picking her up early (post-nap early) to cash in on the coins in their banks and hit the store.
My day with Cal went fantastically -- it was easy, had no hiccups and was actually pretty fun for both of us. When I realized just before we were leaving to pick Ella up from school that it was Columbus Day and banks would be closed, I figured our perfect day could not be disrupted -- there was an alternative in Jewel.
Cal and I picked Ella up from school, and then the three of us made our way with the kids' piggy banks to the Jewel in the neighborhood where I knew there was a Coinstar, not that I've ever used it or really knew how it worked.
By the way, it was raining.
When we got to the Coinstar inside our Jewel, I had to read the instructions. With Ella screaming at me to pick her up or, really, I'm not even sure what she was so upset about, I could only concentrate so much and managed to figure out that I either could get a voucher for our coins but at a fee OR put our coins toward a gift (e-) certificate at no fee. The latter wouldn't work because we needed to deposit half of each kid's money into their savings accounts; and I didn't like the former because, well, a fee?
So we walked to the other side of Jewel where we found that the TCF was open but that they didn't have a coin counter.
"Are banks open today?" I asked.
"Well, we are," the girl responded and then told us the closest TCF with a coin counter.
So off the kids and I were to first see if "our" bank was open (it wasn't), to see if another bank on the block was open (it wasn't) and then to head to the closest TCF with a coin counter, which was about 15-20 minutes away.
I'm sure there was another option -- I just didn't know it.
When we arrived at the Jewel with the TCF with a coin counter, it was pouring rain. Of course. The image of me carrying two full, ceramic piggy banks in the rain as I repeated the phrase, "stay close to Mommy" to my likely-to-stray-in-a-parking-lot kids and then dropping one of the banks triggered my thinking I should come up with an alternative to getting us inside. I threw (gently) the piggy banks into Ella's backpack with her fleece separating the two and unloaded the kids. I carried Ella and her backpack, and Cal walked alongside me (he's good about that); and we made our way in the rain into the Jewel.
Once inside, we moved swiftly thanks to me. I didn't want Ella to have any time to realize how wet she was.
"Do you have a coin counter?" I asked the TCF banker who, without flashing a smile and quite possibly without saying a word, pointed us to the coin counter just past her counter.
"Thanks." I said, setting Ella down on the ground and continuing past the counter, believing the coin counter was actually nearby. It was.
There were two buttons - a Start/Stop and a Print -- and maybe a 4-bullet list of instructions, which I followed to a tee, this time with Ella just clamoring to participate in the counting of her coins, which was more realistic than the Coinstar machine given this TCF coin counter was Ella's height.
Emptying a piggy bank full of coins is a skill that, really, only an adult can do... it's certainly not something that a toddler can do in a reasonable amount of time. I declared I'd empty Ella's coins into the tray and she could push them into the counter, and this was surprisingly met without a fight.
As the machine counted her coins, I saw the sign -- TCF would charge a 8+% fee for non-TCF customers cashing in on coins. Whatever, I conceded, remembering that surcharge that Coinstar would have charged us maybe a half hour earlier.
With all of her coins counted, we printed Ella's voucher and then went through the same process with the coins in Cal's piggy bank.
We took our vouchers back to the TCF banker to cash them in with the same, non-smiling banker we had encountered when we first arrived. Next to her was another banker, an older man, focused on some paperwork at the counter.
The non-smiling TCF banker asked me if I bank at TCF, and I responded grudgingly that I didn't; and she told me that there'd be a fee. "Okay," I said and then turned my attention to my kids who had wandered down a nearby aisle. As I coaxed them back to the counter, the man walked over to the non-smiling banker and said something to her, I wasn't exactly sure what at the time. The next thing I knew, the TCF banker was giving each of my kids the full value of their coins -- no fee and delivered thoughtfully in increments that would make them feel like they had a lot of money.
I thanked her enough that she knew that I appreciated what she had done. It was the right thing for her to do. That was my kids' hard-earned money and they deserved to get every bit of it before they're aware of how the world works.
Ella had already picked a small stuffed animal to buy from Jewel. We stood in line so she could buy it (she handed the cashier her money), and then headed back to the car so we could hit our end destination... the store of choice for this round of reward-chart-money purchases... my personal favorite (though it's becoming more manageable)... Toys 'R Us, where Ella found the thing she wanted to buy with the remainder of her spendable money after only ten steps into the store and where Cal did a lot of analysis and negotiating in the Legos section of the store before deciding what he wanted to buy.
And then we took our "toys" to the checkout where the kids checked out separately. Ella bought her unicorn pillow and Cal bought his Chima Legos sets.
As I write this, I'm sitting across from the fridge where the kids' reward charts hang. I see six stars on Cal's Monday column and five stars on Ella's. I hold out hope that cashing in and seeing some tangible benefits (toys) to their good behavior will have a positive effect on their behavior and that we'll see star counts into the thirties and forties.
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