Tips for Avoiding Bribery

1. Never introduce a Reward Plan immediately after a child misbehaves. If rewards are offered to children just after they engage in undesirable behavior, they may learn only that bad behavior ultimately gets rewarded.
   
2. Wait for a calm moment. Introduce a problem-solving approach when your frustration is at a low ebb and your child is in a mood to “hear” you and understand the plan.
   
3. Encourage your child to come up with ideas that would help her make changes in her own behavior. Bribery focuses only on changing the current behavior and does not offer benefits for life in general. The Reward Plan helps your child watch himself through discipline and perseverance successfully achieve a goal.
   
4. Don't give in to outlandish demands. Stand firm about appropriate awards. If you promise the Taj Mahal (or PlayStation II), your child will not have the time or inclination to get in touch with her own desire to do the right thing.
   
5. Once you've designed and agreed on a Reward Plan, in most cases you must stick to it. The moment you allow your child to significantly lessen the requirements, or change the reward to something bigger, or speed up the timetable, you may be crossing the fine line between rewards and bribery.

Tips on Finding Non-material Rewards: Ideas for Special People and Special Activity Incentives

There are many things children will find rewarding besides material rewards such as toys, sweets, or money. Consider ideas such as the following:

• An afternoon ice-skating with Mom
• A trip to the fire station
• The opportunity to choose the dinner menu
• Making pancakes together on Saturday morning
• Choosing the new raincoat
• Attending story hour at the library
• A special phone call to Grandma
• An overnight with a friend

Tips on How to Keep the Reward Plan Positive

• Don't simply focus on your child's negative behaviors. Identify desired behaviors that could replace the unwanted ones.
• Be sure that rewards can be earned if your child puts in a reasonable degree of effort.
• Allow for the possibility of slip-ups when setting requirements for points earned.
• Provide frequent reminders about goals; children forget their goals easily.
• Sympathize with your child when he fails to earn points, stars, or stickers, and tell him he'll have other opportunities to earn them.