Our reward system

We've tried a couple different things with Aubrey to encourage good behavior. We had one of those charts that you get a sticker at the end of the day if you obey, clean up your room etc.. That wasn't really working for us because it was hard to have a whole day where she would obey, clean up every single mess, or always be nice to her sister. So how do you give a sticker for most of the day? You can't because she would remember her "episode"... She was getting frustrated and so was I. 

I turned to the internet and found ideas for marble jars. Great idea, but with a 1 year old walking around the house and putting anything and everything in her mouth, we decided that marbles wouldn't really work for us. So we replaced the marbles with sticks. On each stick it says something positive. Double bonus. Aubrey loves knowing what the stick says. 

Sticks from Hobby Lobby $2 for 100 sticks. 

We keep the sticks in a jar in the kitchen. I also have some in my purse and in the car to reward good behavior on the go!

They are right next to my nifty little mail organizer :)

Aubrey keeps her sticks in her room in a Toy Story bucket from her birthday party. 

It has taken us awhile to figure out how many sticks she has to collect before getting a reward. We started out saying 15 ... too many. For the first couple days she was ending the day with zero or one. So we have lowered it to 10... still too many for now. She's in this really sassy mood lately. I think it's been the craziness of the holidays. We are at to 5 sticks gets a reward and that seems to be working for us right now eventually we are going to bump that number up. 

She gets sticks for good behaviors and sticks are taken away for bad behavior. It's really helped her see that he actions have consequences. Having a tangible way to see her behavior in a good or bad way has helped both of us. 

Claiming her reward: Slush from Sonic during Happy Hour 

We wanted to have rewards that were fun something that she'd enjoy and hopefully want to continue her good behavior but didn't want to have to spend a ton of money on. 

Some rewards include: 

Slush from Sonic

Yogurt from Yogurt Mill

Popcorn and Redbox movie 

Mommy and Aubrey trip

Daddy and Aubrey trip

Aubrey loves to get sticks and read the little praise on the stick. I love having a 4 1/2 year old that is getting better with her words she chooses and the choices she makes. Win for Aubrey and win for Mommy!