Providing a positive consequence after a child engages in behaviors you want to develop is a very powerful tool. These consequences are called positive reinforcers. You may think of them as rewards, but the term rewards make us think of trinkets and candy and the like, and these are not what we need to use at all to change behavior. In fact, the most important positive consequence you could provide routinely is praise. In a separate video, I described a special praise and how it is used to change behavior. In this video, we will talk about giving concrete positive consequences and, specifically, the use of points. Unlike praise, points are a tangible reward that the child earns for engaging in behaviors you wish to develop. These are called Point Programs. This means that the program uses something like points or stars or checkmarks or tickets or tokens of some kind. What is used as the point or token doesn't make any difference in how the program works. These points are given when the child engages in the specific behavior or habit we want to develop. In everyday life, we call them point programs, but the technical term is token economy. And you are very familiar with key features of this because money, in our everyday life, is part of a token economy. We earn tokens, money, for things we do, and we spend these tokens on other things. As a tool to change child behavior, point programs focus on developing specific behaviors and are more systematic than usual economy where we use money. Perhaps you are thinking, the last thing I want to do is to give my child points for good behavior. You should just do the behavior when I ask and I should not need to use praise or points. I completely agree. But if your child does not do the behaviors you want, praise and point programs can really help. A great deal of scientific research shows that the programs could be very effective. This does not necessarily mean you will want to have a point program to change behavior of your child, but it does mean that point programs are another tool you would want to have in your behavior change toolkit. So what is a Point Program? It's a system of administering rewards to develop positive behaviors. It's a way of structuring the rewards. The points operate like money, they're earned by the child. In this case, they are earned for behaviors you want to develop. They are spent like money. In this case, the child can spend them on privileges or activities or other items of interest, maybe small toys. As with all the tools we're discussing, the goal is to increase practice of the behaviors you want to develop, and point programs can do that. So there are five ingredients needed for a point program. The first ingredient, is specify exactly the behaviors that earn points. Be very concrete. For example, it should be something like completing 15 minutes of homework or putting your toys back into your room or getting into bed by 8 p.m. The second ingredient, choose a medium that will serve as points. These can be checkmarks or smiley faces, tickets, stars, even pennies. This is kind of like money. Third ingredient, have a way of monitoring and keeping track of the point earnings. Use a chart or something so you and your child can see how many points were earned. Place the chart on a refrigerator or some place easily seen. Fourth ingredient, specify how many points the behavior or each behavior earns. So for example, if you put your toys away, you earn one star; if you go to bed before 8 p.m., you can get another star. Fifth ingredient, develop a reward menu that specifies what the points can buy and what the prices are. These rewards can include privileges like staying up late, playing a game with a parent, or extra time on a computer. Each reward needs to have a price in terms of how many points are needed to buy one of them. Food and snacks can be put on the list of rewards, but I tend to shy away from these, in part, because we do not want to add extra calories when more children are overweight and because snacks that are the most rewarding tend to be the least healthful. And of course, before you start the program, explain it all to the child. Maybe have the child help in selecting rewards. So let me summarize the five ingredients: specify the behavior that will earn points, choose something to serve as the points, have a way of keeping track of earnings and expenditures, specify how many points are earned for the behaviors, and make a list of rewards and how many points are required to buy them. So consider a typical example. Suppose you were having trouble getting your daughter to follow directions when you ask her to do something. Maybe the behavior you ask her to do is get ready for school in the morning or get ready for bed. You have to remind her, actually, you have to nag a lot. Now, you may want to try a Point Program to change behavior. The behavior to change is minding or following directions when you ask. Now, choose something to service points, maybe stars or stickers on a chart. Now, make up a chart to keep track of these earnings. For this chart, you could draw days across the top with a box under each day and a space for you to give points, maybe paste a star or put a check mark. Now, specify the points that will be earned for each of the behaviors. How many points are earned from the behavior? Perhaps your child can earn a maximum of three stars per day for following any three instructions. Finally, you need a list of rewards. What can the stars buy? And these might be two stars to get the story before bed or extra bedtime, four stars to get a computer game with mom or dad, and maybe 10 stars to get a weekend activity. Add some more so there's a choice. Have some things that are inexpensive, just a couple of stars, and other things that require saving up a little bit. But it's important to have small rewards that can be bought right away without saving up. At the end of each day or whenever convenient, choose a time when she can buy something. Whenever she earns a star, be sure to praise her. The praise is really critical. You need to tell her exactly what she did to get a star and praise that. If she gets ready for school on time when you ask in the morning, she gets a star. If she does not do the behavior, she just does not get a star – no nagging. You go off to when you say, "You did not get a star today, but maybe you can earn one for that behavior tomorrow." And do the same for other instructions that are part of the program. So here's where programs break down. Parents usually want too much behavior to give out a point. We're stingy when we do this. Our undoing is we believe the child knows how to do this and can do the whole thing. No. To build habits, we praise and give tokens for small bits of behavior. So, we didn't get the full hour of homework, but we started out by giving points for 10 minutes of homework. Once we build that in, it's easy to expand that. In the beginning, keep it simple, focus and try to change one or a maximum of two behaviors but no more. Once the behaviors develop consistently, you can stop giving points and praise for that and replace it with another behavior. Another thing to be aware of, do not give points for long-distance outcomes. So for example, the program will not work if you say if you get good grades, I'll give you a car. That does not teach the behavior of studying, learning, practicing. We praise and we give points for behaviors along the way. You may have some questions about the program. The first question is, do I really need something as complex as the point program to change behavior? Actually, praise when administered correctly, in the way described in a separate video, is very effective, but point programs can help structure the situation. Points often help parents be more consistent because giving points is more easily tracked than giving praise. So we have found that if you ask parents to praise more, it doesn't happen very systematically or often enough to change the child behavior. Giving points often helps parents give out praise systematically. The points serve as cues for parents to actually give the praise. Another question, isn't this just bribery? It seems I'm just paying off my child to get the behavior. No, no, this is nothing like bribery at all, where you try to get something done once for some payoff. We are using consequences and other tools to develop behaviors you wish; we are building habits, we are developing prosocial, appropriate behavior. Usually, this can be done completely with a very careful use of praise, and points can add further. Remember, we are using consequences to get more instances of the behavior – that practice leads to permanent change in the child. Another question, how do I stop this program or do I have to give points to my child for the rest of his life? Like all programs and tools we are talking about in these videos, these are temporary changes in what you do. The techniques discuss a way to build habits, usually, they are temporary changes in your behavior as a parent to make permanent changes in the child's behavior. You can eliminate the program once the behavior is consistently performed. You can say to your child, "We're only gonna do the program on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Because you're such a big girl, you don't really need it anymore." And then you can stop for a week. You could also switch to praise or praise more instead of behavior. In my experiences, most often the programs just drop out. The child does the behavior regularly and everyone just lets it fade and it stops. Once the program is stopped, will the behaviors get lost? No, not at all. We build habits. The tools we're discussing maintain the behavior after you stop the programs. So let me summarize; point programs are effective way to change behavior, you need a few ingredients, what exactly is the behavior that will earn points, what will serve as the points – stars or something, have a way to keep track of this – some chart to monitor it, how many points are earned for the behaviors, and we need a list of rewards and what they buy. You might use this if you feel praise is not working or if want to provide more structure. Remember, each video discusses a tool to change behavior, but more than one tool is needed to make the change you want. The point is nicely illustrated in the point programs. You might say, I've tried reward programs and they did not work. Reward program shouldn't work, they're one tool and they have to be combined with other things. You would never build a house with one tool, and we do not try to build enduring habits in a child with one tool. Even so, the use of praise and points as consequences for behavior are very useful tools. When you provide points, praise exactly what the behavior is the child's getting points for. Praise is effective by itself, points give you another option. As always, the magic is not in the rewards, it's in getting the behavior you wish to be practiced repeatedly. That's what builds habits, that's what changes the brains. We will have more tools in other videos.
