The Chart

Published by Tawnya Jonsek on November 5, 2009 07:25 pm under Stuff

When we first moved to Arkansas, the transition was difficult on my oldest son. So much so that my boy suddenly developed a serious attitude and wanted to argue about everything I asked him to do. I was tired of nagging, tired of the arguments and intuitively I knew I had to somehow remove myself from the equation of getting his cooperation. I also needed to find his motivation.

After a lot of thought, I came up with “the chart”. The chart looks like a hand-drawn Excel spreadsheet. On the right hand side is a list of behaviors, all positively framed (Be respectful, good hygiene, kind to brothers, homework done by 7:30, etc.). Then I have two columns, debits and credits. Every time he successfully meets a behavior, he receives a tally in the credit column. When he doesn’t, he gets a tally in the debit column. Debit marks are worth -10 points, credits are 5 points. He starts each week with 2o0 points. At the end of the week, we count up the debits and credits and subtract any negative balance from the 200 points. The remaining points correspond to how much allowance he earns for the week.

In doing this, I hope to accomplish several things.

1. Time management – I’m not hovering anymore. He knows the expectations and deadlines he has for completing tasks. If he doesn’t complete them on time, he gets a mark. End of discussion. (He learned fairly quickly from that one and has been pretty good at meeting deadlines.)

2. Chores – He’s always had chores, but the emphasis is no longer me harassing him about them. Instead my approach is to trust him to know what he has to do. I don’t have to nag because the motivation of getting as many points as possible does the job for me. Plus, he learns that when he performs well there is a reward and when he doesn’t,  he knows there are consequences.

3. Money Management – He now has a regular income and will get to see firsthand how to manage money in small doses. Plus, in using accounting terminology and a checkbook-style format for calculating his allowance, I hope to get him familiar with handling finances and checkbooks before I release him into the wild as an 18 year old.

4. Consequences – I chose for the debit tally marks to be worth more than credit marks on purpose. In life, if you do what you are supposed to the first time, it’s often less costly than if you procrastinate or do a poor job. (Ever spend lots more money to register your car because you didn’t meet the deadline and got a ticket for it?)

5. Math – I make him add up the tally marks and calculate the amount he earns while I oversee his efforts. It’s my way of showing him why it’s a good idea to know math.

So far – the last three weeks we’ve used “the chart” have been great. His attitude has made a 180 turn and the amount of nagging (my nagging) has dropped at least 85%.  And maybe, just maybe, all these lessons I have planned for him will sink in.

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