Easy Behavior Modification Techniques with Behavior Chips
Children just wouldn’t be children if they didn’t test the boundaries and limits before them, which can sometimes lead to behaviors that make life more difficult for everyone. Maybe your child consistently interrupts conversations, or raises her voice every time she wants attention. These negative behaviors can be frustrating for us as parents, but there are easy behavior modification techniques that we can implement to turn those unwanted behaviors into positive outcomes.
Behavior chips are inexpensive, tangible techniques for behavior modification, and they don’t have to involve glamorous rewards. Start with a stash of poker chips, game chips, buttons, or other simple disks or shapes. If you have more than one child, have either separate colors for each or take a permanent marker and label equal amounts of chips with your kids’ names or initials. Keep the set of chips easily accessible, and then find or create a container (give it a name such as Good Behavior Bucket) for these chips to be added to during the process. This could be a small bucket, basket, jar, dish, or other container.
Begin by explaining to your kids that there are things happening in the home that are wonderful, such as sharing toys with younger siblings, helping Dad with yard work, and doing homework without complaining (try to be specific so your kids get a good understanding of your examples). Then explain that there are things going on that aren’t so wonderful. Again, be specific so that your children can clearly see the difference between the two types of behaviors.
Tell your kids that you will be giving them special chips to add to the Good Behavior Bucket. Make sure to establish several rules here.
- A child may not ask for a chip, no matter how excellent the behavior was.
- Chips are not guaranteed – they will be given at the parents’ discretion. Some kids in the family might earn chips for different positive behaviors, depending upon the changes desired.
- You won’t get a chip every time you do a positive behavior.
It is important that you follow-through with these rules and remember to use the chips throughout the day when using this behavior modification technique. You can even stash some in your purse for busy days out and about where you want to immediately mark a desired behavior for your child. You don’t want your child to expect chips, so make sure you vary the frequency of allocating chips. It is also a good idea to have a several goal behaviors established – if you start out with only one, such as unloading the dishwasher without being reminded, the end result is way too predictable for kids.
Throughout the day, give them a chip when you catch them doing good things that help reach the behavior goals, emphasizing the positive. Have them put the chips in the Good Behavior Bucket. These will be used randomly as chip bonuses. You don’t want your child so focused on the bonus (reward) that they forget the intrinsic value of the action. Ideas for chip bonuses are:
- Choosing the game or movie for family night
- Helping choose what to make for dinner
- Selecting the book for story-time or before bedtime
- Get out of chore free card (Yes – this might mean you unload the dishwasher, but the trade-off can be really worth it!)
- Choosing the next activity (playing basketball, putting a puzzle together, etc.)
- Anything that is a small incentive!
The more chips in the bucket that belong to a particular child, the greater the chances that child’s chip will be pulled for chip bonuses. Once you have pulled a chip out of the Good Behavior Bucket, place it back with the rest to be earned again.
As with so many things in parenting, consistency is a key ingredient to the success of this behavior modification technique. Make sure you catch your kids doing good things, and that your expectations are age appropriate for each child.
A Twist on The Behavior Modification Chip Technique
As a homeschool mom I have used the behavior modification chip technique several times with great success, for both social and academic behaviors. I added a little twist to this version one time and instead of handing out chips, I handed out special pieces of paper that could be used to estimate the number of beans I had sealed in a jar. Each piece of paper was earned by simply displaying positive attitudes – it might have been not complaining about math tests, doing chores with a smile, or cheering on siblings instead of teasing them. Whenever a child would turn in an estimate, I would write either , , or = and turn this back. This behavior modification technique disguised as a math game helped turn our winter blues with negative attitudes into a warm, caring home once again.
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