Was curious if others use this...I used to use a variety of token system when I taught and they always worked wonders and allowed me to focus on the positive behavior and not the negative (when I did my classroom systems I didn't take the tokens away, kids could just earn them for making good choices).....and we have been looking at starting one at home for our 6 year old......we are torn between these 2 thought camps.

Camp 1: Earning a set amount of tokens for a positive behavior (1 token for saying please/thank you, 5 tokens for dressing himself,.....) and then being able to exchange the tokens he has earned in for different things (25 tokens for an extra book at bedtime, 50 tokens for a bike ride to get an ice-cream,.....)

Camp 2: Earning set amount of tokens for positive behavior (like set up above) BUT we can also take tokens away for negative...such as lose 3 for talking back or saying no, lose 5 for demanding something,....

My little guy really thrives on positive but we have been having a tricky time with some not so pleasant attitude/behavior issues which I know some stem from his OE issues(yelling and talking back, hitting, saying no, saying mean/spiteful things)and it has gotten out of hand in some cases.....

For example....last week he stuck his foot into his 2 large plastic lego container boxes and proceeded to try to shuffle across the floor with his feet in the boxes (no big deal), he then lifted up his foot sending a huge wave of legos flying everywhere (again, not a huge deal)..he then put his feet back in the boxes and attempted to pick up as many legos as he could on his feet and fling them everywhere as he vocally stated if he could "throw" further with his left or right foot (ok....as I take a deep breath and look at over 100 small legos everywhere, he is experimenting with force/simple machines...)...then he looks at me and yells/demands that I pick them all up as he goes into the other room and leaves this giant mess. This is not okay with me....and this is where the "getting in trouble" comes into play....we usually counter with, if he doesn't come pick up the mess, then the legos go into time out for the afternoon....and he throws a fit.

last week he was very upset after a bout of time out for hitting me because he was angry and told me that he was tired of always being told what he did wrong and that he has been very unhappy because he always seems to be in trouble...and it really made me think hard about how I have been handling the situation and how I really need to try to be more positive...He is highly gifted and has a way of out-thinking systems....like I can see this whole scenario play out if we went with the token/take away system...in fact, I would almost bet money that he would do this exact thing.....if he knows that he has 100 tokens in the jar and that he wants to do something that "costs" 70 tokens....and he knows that he loses 20 for hitting...then he will go ahead and hit knowing full well that he will still be able to earn his 70 token reward....I know that the Camp 1 idea would work great but don't know if I should add in the take away or not? Would love to hear opinions

Last edited by Belle; 08/03/09 09:01 AM.