Rewards for Kids!: Ready-to-Use Charts & Activities for Positive Parenting

by Virginia M. Shiller, Bonnie Matthews, Meg F. Schneider

Learning Magazine’s Teacher’s Choice Award for the Family
iParenting Media Award
Foreword Magazine Book of the Year (Bronze)
Independent Publishers Book of the Year Award (finalist)

“A cleareyed and informative look at the trials of parenting, this readable book presents one solution customized for a bevy of situations, providing a template to tackle practically every challenge through this new lens.” —Kirkus Reviews

In  Rewards for Kids!  experienced psychologist and child-development expert Virginia Shiller makes it easy for parents to design and carry out reward programs to address their children's individual needs.

Detailed "how-to" instructions, together with twenty-one lively sample reward plans that incorporate behavioral principles, guide parents through the steps for success. Sample plans address common behavior problems such as bedtime procrastination and sleep disturbances, getting along with siblings or friends, getting ready for school and other events on time, doing chores, and completing homework without fuss.

Shiller recommends that reward plans be accompanied by plenty of age-appropriate parent-child dialogue about problem behaviors, and the book clearly and persuasively distinguishes between rewards and bribery. Rewards for Kids! also provides a wealth of ideas about enhancing the effectiveness of reward plans by including creative interventions such as role-play, story-telling, and humorous reminders. Readers easily grasp how reward plans can be used to empower children rather than simply to achieve control.

The many imaginative pull-out charts, awards, and certificates, designed for children aged 3–12, can be personalized by coloring and decorating them with photos and stickers. The large variety of reproducible charts makes this a valuable resource for professionals as well as parents.

Genres: Parenting, Psychology

131 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this book as I was looking for something else and it was an enjoyable little skim-worthy book. My daughter is very rewards-based. If there's a reward involved, she's able to stay focused on a goal. However, I liked the author's explanations of a bribe vs a reward. I don't foresee myself using any of the actual charts in the book, but I could see us creating something similiar in the future as we continue to build upon and implement good habits.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was helpful in giving parents ideas for appropriate ways to reward kids without spoiling. It encourages kids to confirm to their parents. I liked the pull out charts and ideas. It gives various charts and ideas of ways to improve behavior.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have been using more reward charts for Tate, he seems to do better with encouraging positive behavior instead of correcting for wrong behavior. Not that I didn't praise and encourage positive behavior before, but punishments (isolation, etc.) for wrong behavior was just getting us into an unhealthy cycle. SO, I picked up this book for inspiration on different reward charts. I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, but becasue I pretty much did get what I expected, I gave it 4. The other stuff that I read through was pretty common sense stuff, but nevertheless, it was a good book to get ideas on how to utilize the reward chart for changing behavior. There are all positive charts, other charts that you can do both bath and "opps", etc. One confirmation I did get from the book was that indeed, her grown kids do not expect "something" everytime they do good. Also, Shiller confirmed, which is what we have seen, that usually it takes one reward chart to see a positive change in a behavior and that change typically sticks (for a good while anyway) without any more reward....the better behavior has become more of a habit without even knowing it was happening.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book and will be going back to it often. What's great about this book, is not only does it offer ways to use different reward charts as well as story examples but in the back of the book, there are many charts, tickets, tokens that can be torn out and photocopied to use over and over. However, I wish they would have put the charts out on a website to download and print off instead of having to tear the charts out of the book to photocopy them. I am eager to use more of the charts but a trip to the photocopy place is in order first.

[Rochelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was pretty corny. The writing was, if not simplistic, really dumbed-down. Yet wordy, if that's possible!
The reward chart layouts were okay, but I think we're going to stick to our own charts which we've been seeing success with. I was hoping to get more ideas from this book, but it seemed like Ms. Shiller just liked lots of examples that droned on.