Incentives for Motivating Children
What are incentives?
Incentives are rewards for good behaviors. Incentives are especially helpful for overcoming resistance when children are locked in a power struggle or control battle with their parents. Rewards give a child a reason to end the power struggle.
How do I use incentives?
There are four rules that make incentives powerful:
- The incentive is strongly desired by the child. You can ask your child for ideas.
- The reward is given immediately after the child meets the goal.
- The child is given access to the incentive for 30 to 60 minutes.
- The reward continues to be owned and controlled by the parent.
The fourth rule is essential. The child’s access to the toy, costume, or other incentive needs to be time-limited. That way your child is really earning a privilege and not another possession. That’s the only way to maintain the incentive’s value.
What are good incentives to use?
- Access to a new toy or favorite toy
- Trike or bike time
- Train set time
- Star Wars toys time
- Lego project time
- Car and truck time
- Remote control dog or car time
- Lion or dinosaur toys time
- Creating jewelry time
- Art or drawing time
- Water pistol time
- Magic sword time
- New costume or outfit time
- Batman, Superman, Snow White, Belle, etc.
- Nail Polish
- Special shoes or dress-up clothes
- Media time
- New videos
- Videotapes of favorite TV shows
- Computer or video games
- Special foods
- Candy or sweets
- Ice cream or popsicle
- Special cookies
- Favorite foods (such as pizza or strawberries)
- Food from a favorite restaurant
- Money (coins)
You can add some variety to incentives by making a grab bag of surprises or slips of paper with different incentives written on them. You can also reward breakthroughs or significant goals with a triple reward (such as, going to a fast food place, picking out a video and staying up late to watch it).