Hubby & I sat down with the girls a few days ago to brainstorm what habits were more important to work on for the moment, and the cards and accompanying sheets got printed out. We set a few goals with the girls, and already Dojogirl is beginning to add things of her own. The Banana asked me this morning if we could add some special “Mama time” to her list of goals. So there’s no lack of motivation for good behaviour!

Yesterday was our first day of using the cards, and we did our tallies this morning after the girls got up. We’ve decided to do it this way so we can count getting to bed on time, as this is a trouble spot in our family. It didn’t make sense to have the girls getting up after they were tucked in, so we evaluate from breakfast time to breakfast time instead of breakfast to bedtime.

Both the girls lost two out of nine cards on our first day. Because the Banana had no points assigned to her cards, that wasn’t too bad for her. Dojogirl’s cards had numeric values attached to them, with the harder things worth more points. Unfortunately, it worked out that she lost two of the more weighty cards, and it caused her to lose 30 out of 100 points. In theory that’s a “failed” day - although it will average out once we look at several days in a row to evaluate a specific goal.

We didn’t put too much emphasis on the failure aspect, but did remind her that she’d hae to be on extra special behaviour to make up for it. Already, the tomato planting for tomorrow is in danger of being postponed….

It’s no miracle overnight cure, but it does seem to be working better than sticker charts ever did. The girls were much more helpful this morning than they’ve been in a while. We’re still working on attentiveness, however!

We may have to re-think the points assigned to Dojogirl’s habits, so as not to set her up for failure. Other than that, the system is working smoothly. Even better, it hardly takes any time at all to implement. That’s a big plus in my book.

Thanks to Debra for sharing her cards!

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