On Smiley Faces

20/11/2007 Tues

Tonight we totalled up the number of smiley faces each child got since last Wednesday. Kyle got a total of 22 smileyf aces while Meryl had only 13. This was by far the most they had received within one week since we started the reward system about 2 months ago. The kids receive a smiley face sticker for everything they do right and a Black X for every wrong deed committed. Initially the plan was to reward them with a present for every 10 faces received and punishment for every 5 black Xes per week but it seemed difficult to get any presents as they have as many number of Xes as smiley faces. Now we give them 20cts for each smiley faces and deduct 20cts for each Xes.

This worked out to be $4 for kyle this week ( 22 :) - 2X = 20) and $2 for Meryl (13:) - 3X=10). This high number of smiley faces for Kyle was partly due to his dad giving him 5 :0) for his excellent report from school on his behaviour and performance. Kyle was so excited and kept asking me what he can buy with the money. I told him to accumulate more smiley faces in order to get a bigger present. This system seemed to be working much better now than in the beginning.

Below is a list of some of the things he did this week:

Eating lunch fast
Teaching Meryl to read
sharing snacks with Meryl
Massaging mummy
Read Hop on Pop on his own
taking care of baby at the playground
Behaving well whilst mum and dad are busy
helped to carry food up to give to the poor
Sat still while cutting hair
washing own plates and cups
jogged with mummy
observed safety when on the road - held hands
eating dinner fast
doing well in school