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Let’s Make a Contract: A Positive Way to Change Your Child’s Behavior
"Colorful and easy to implement, this book will be a resource for parents and guardians looking to try behavior contracting in their homes." —Library Journal
When a child is struggling with a behavior challenge or wants to learn a new skill, a contract can be a surprisingly effective solution that leads to more peaceful family dynamics. To help families create contracts as a collaborative process, Let’s Make a Contract offers an innovative combination of how-to text for parents and illustrated stories for children.
Let’s Make a Contract describes a straightforward, four-step solution called behavioral contracting, a research-based technique with proven real-world success. Contracts are a tool that can benefit anyone, but they’re particularly useful for:
Autistic children
Children with learning or developmental disabilities
Children who benefit from clear expectations and receiving positive feedback and rewards
The book’s beautifully illustrated stories show a diverse group of families using contracts to address common problems such as:
Completing chores or homework
Getting along with siblings
Becoming independent
Achieving personal goals
Questions after each story are designed to spark age-appropriate discussions.
Sample contracting forms and supporting materials are provided in the book and also on a companion website.
When a child is struggling with a behavior challenge or wants to learn a new skill, a contract can be a surprisingly effective solution that leads to more peaceful family dynamics. To help families create contracts as a collaborative process, Let’s Make a Contract offers an innovative combination of how-to text for parents and illustrated stories for children.
Let’s Make a Contract describes a straightforward, four-step solution called behavioral contracting, a research-based technique with proven real-world success. Contracts are a tool that can benefit anyone, but they’re particularly useful for:
Autistic children
Children with learning or developmental disabilities
Children who benefit from clear expectations and receiving positive feedback and rewards
The book’s beautifully illustrated stories show a diverse group of families using contracts to address common problems such as:
Completing chores or homework
Getting along with siblings
Becoming independent
Achieving personal goals
Questions after each story are designed to spark age-appropriate discussions.
Sample contracting forms and supporting materials are provided in the book and also on a companion website.
- GenresParenting
208 pages, Paperback
Published May 26, 2022
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 7, 2022
The book Let's Make a Contract presents families with an easy and fun way to implement behavior contracting strategies that have already been demonstrated to succeed in various scientific studies. I am moved to know that families all over the World will have access to this incredible book written by Jill Dardig and Bill Heward, which brilliantly translate scientific principles into an everyday language, with various examples and many resources and illustrations. I loved it and highly recommend it!
May 26, 2022
In my opinion, this book is a must read for every parent and teacher. It covers the basics of how to make your life with your kids better, and for those of us who have actually used the advice and guidance in this book, we know it works. The book is easy to read, beautifully illustrated, and I just learned that it now comes with a ressource page on the internet, where you can download the forms from the book. It does not get much better than this, especially for stressed out parents.
June 15, 2022
Drs. Jill Dardig and Bill Heward’s book, Let’s Make a Contract: A Positive Way to Change your Child’s Behavior (2022) provides parents, foster parents, grandparents—indeed any child-care provider—with a workable tool to address a myriad of nagging and persistent child behaviors. Using a series of vignettes based on diverse parent-child interactions, Dardig and Heward show parents how to design and implement a positive approach for selecting tasks to be completed by the child, rewards to be earned when tasks are accomplished, a recording system to enhance accountability for all parties, and a method to adjust and/or troubleshoot the entire process if circumstances dictate modifications.
Aside from the technical information that the book provides, Let’s Make a Contract offers several key features that add to its appeal. For instance, the colorful illustrations, examples, and format styles are first rate. Also, the book features attractive and stand-alone, icon-highlighted Text Boxes, FAQs, Next Steps, and Let’s Talk sections that add flavor and nuance to the narrative. The book also contains a helpful glossary of terms, reading resources, and references. Contract forms in English and several other languages can be downloaded for free at the book’s companion website—contractingwithkids.com
A final point: it should not escape the reader’s attention that this book provides a non-punitive way to address issues that many parents face raising a child. Dardig and Heward remind readers that, in the end, positive approaches will best serve the family’s needs, and that rewards do not mean monetary payouts. When parents/child-care providers change their own behavior by proposing and adopting a contracting system, the interactive and communicative process that unfolds bodes well for the future of the family dynamic. When the parent repeatedly catches the child being good, and the child experiences a valued reward, good things happen. Dardig and Heward’s Let’s Make a Contract is a practical vehicle to set the occasion for this outcome. I highly recommend this book.
Aside from the technical information that the book provides, Let’s Make a Contract offers several key features that add to its appeal. For instance, the colorful illustrations, examples, and format styles are first rate. Also, the book features attractive and stand-alone, icon-highlighted Text Boxes, FAQs, Next Steps, and Let’s Talk sections that add flavor and nuance to the narrative. The book also contains a helpful glossary of terms, reading resources, and references. Contract forms in English and several other languages can be downloaded for free at the book’s companion website—contractingwithkids.com
A final point: it should not escape the reader’s attention that this book provides a non-punitive way to address issues that many parents face raising a child. Dardig and Heward remind readers that, in the end, positive approaches will best serve the family’s needs, and that rewards do not mean monetary payouts. When parents/child-care providers change their own behavior by proposing and adopting a contracting system, the interactive and communicative process that unfolds bodes well for the future of the family dynamic. When the parent repeatedly catches the child being good, and the child experiences a valued reward, good things happen. Dardig and Heward’s Let’s Make a Contract is a practical vehicle to set the occasion for this outcome. I highly recommend this book.
July 15, 2022
Let's Make a Contract: A Positive Way to Change Your Child’s Behavior opens up a whole universe that emphasizes various ways of developing an efficient parent-child relationship, as well as a guide to learning social rules and to behavior-modeling.
The described tools can be successfully used with children above six years of age, as well as with teenagers.
This book offers various possibilities for identifying the specific steps that should be made within the process of self-monitoring for children and also within the process of efficient communication development between the child and her family.
The techniques, procedures and friendly examples were purposefully designed so that each parent would be able to maximize her contribution to her own child’s educational process.
The authors, William Heward and Jill Dardig, are offering a very helpful tool for all families facing difficulties concerning their child’s development, the relationship with their child or modeling challenging behaviors.
With the help of this book, Autism Voice has the opportunity to give both professionals and parents in Romania a remarkable tool which will help with efficient behavior modeling and also with the development of a positive relationship of the child with both her family and the society as a whole.
We are grateful to William Heward and Jill for this wonderful collaboration!
Anca Dumitrescu, BCBA, Autism Voice Co-founder
The described tools can be successfully used with children above six years of age, as well as with teenagers.
This book offers various possibilities for identifying the specific steps that should be made within the process of self-monitoring for children and also within the process of efficient communication development between the child and her family.
The techniques, procedures and friendly examples were purposefully designed so that each parent would be able to maximize her contribution to her own child’s educational process.
The authors, William Heward and Jill Dardig, are offering a very helpful tool for all families facing difficulties concerning their child’s development, the relationship with their child or modeling challenging behaviors.
With the help of this book, Autism Voice has the opportunity to give both professionals and parents in Romania a remarkable tool which will help with efficient behavior modeling and also with the development of a positive relationship of the child with both her family and the society as a whole.
We are grateful to William Heward and Jill for this wonderful collaboration!
Anca Dumitrescu, BCBA, Autism Voice Co-founder
May 28, 2022
Jill and Bill’s “Let’s Make a Contract” blows me away. The first thing I noticed, of course, was the colorful illustrations, done in a style that is visually reinforcing for all ages from 6 to 86 and probably beyond that, but I’m not sure yet. The second thing I noticed was the spacing between the lines of text making it kid friendly, without condescending to mom and dad, the book’s primary readers. And when I finally started reading the book, it’s mom-and-dad friendly, not full of technical, behavioral gobbledygook. And finally, it does provide excellent behavior-analysis-based recommendations for how mom and dad, working with their kids, can help the kids get their acts together, stop doing the stuff they shouldn’t do and start doing the stuff they should do. And even more impressive, they even have a chapter on how the kids can help mom and dad get their acts together and stop doing the stuff they shouldn’t do. A must read, for all moms and dads. Jill and Bill, thanks for writing this.
June 22, 2022
It is said “it takes a village to raise a child”, which can be very true from many perspectives. The main one is that any child learns from a number of different people in a number of different environments. The most significant should be their home, interacting with their parents. Nowadays, all live very busy lives and keeping consistency at home has become a real struggle for most parents. In addition to school-time, creating productive learning opportunities for their children at home may become a challenging task, which unavoidably may lead to frequent arguments. Making contracts has been identified in the literature as the possible solution! This is where this new book by Dardig and Heward should be considered as an invaluable source for every family!! It is not only that it has been written in such a parent-friendly way, fully illustrated and translated in many languages... Most importantly, it provides “how-to text”, equipping each family with a tool that will contribute to make “learning” an enjoyable everyday task as it should be!! I could not recommend it more...
June 23, 2022
In our daily lives, we experience a spectrum of rewards—from redeeming “stars” at an
international coffee chain to cashing in points on a Disney card. Why wouldn’t we want
to reward children to shape positive behavior?
In their book, Let’s Make a Contract, Drs. Jill C. Dardig and William L. Heward clearly
define what a contract is, its parts, and how it can help resolve problems and achieve
goals. This text is well-structured providing relevant examples, as well as sample
contract forms for a range of ages and abilities. It also explicitly describes how to plan
for clarity of the contract and its success. Finally, it lists common rewards, none more
important than a parent’s willingness to provide a positive consequence rather than a
punitive one. The cumulative effect of this approach can, quite literally, change the
world. As a mother and an Early Childhood Intervention Specialist, I highly recommend
this book.
international coffee chain to cashing in points on a Disney card. Why wouldn’t we want
to reward children to shape positive behavior?
In their book, Let’s Make a Contract, Drs. Jill C. Dardig and William L. Heward clearly
define what a contract is, its parts, and how it can help resolve problems and achieve
goals. This text is well-structured providing relevant examples, as well as sample
contract forms for a range of ages and abilities. It also explicitly describes how to plan
for clarity of the contract and its success. Finally, it lists common rewards, none more
important than a parent’s willingness to provide a positive consequence rather than a
punitive one. The cumulative effect of this approach can, quite literally, change the
world. As a mother and an Early Childhood Intervention Specialist, I highly recommend
this book.
June 14, 2022
Hello, parents, teachers, relatives, and just about anyone!
"Let's Make a Contract" will be a great gift you can give to yourself and to a child (children) in your life. Coming to agreement, finding out what is the most important thing (things) for you and your family members/students, building understanding around each other's needs - we all can talk about it and agree on significance of this knowledge, but...
Do we know where to start? What steps and in what order should we take? When and what should we do to address confusions along the way? If you don't know answers to all these questions - you will need this book by Jill Dardig and William Heward.
I sure am happy to have it on my bookshelf.
Enjoy!
"Let's Make a Contract" will be a great gift you can give to yourself and to a child (children) in your life. Coming to agreement, finding out what is the most important thing (things) for you and your family members/students, building understanding around each other's needs - we all can talk about it and agree on significance of this knowledge, but...
Do we know where to start? What steps and in what order should we take? When and what should we do to address confusions along the way? If you don't know answers to all these questions - you will need this book by Jill Dardig and William Heward.
I sure am happy to have it on my bookshelf.
Enjoy!
June 30, 2022
A Wonderful Resource for Parents!
As a behavior analyst and a parent of a toddler, this book has been invaluable. This book is easy to read, presented in an attractive format, and provides MULTIPLE applicable resources on top of the instruction given. The materials are presented in a way that promote the functionality of the book, working together as a family with your children to create and sustain behavior change. I cannot recommend this book enough; and will be doing so to any family I come across looking for a helpful resource that not only creates and sustains behavior change, but also promotes fusion within the nuclear family and beyond.
As a behavior analyst and a parent of a toddler, this book has been invaluable. This book is easy to read, presented in an attractive format, and provides MULTIPLE applicable resources on top of the instruction given. The materials are presented in a way that promote the functionality of the book, working together as a family with your children to create and sustain behavior change. I cannot recommend this book enough; and will be doing so to any family I come across looking for a helpful resource that not only creates and sustains behavior change, but also promotes fusion within the nuclear family and beyond.
June 27, 2022
If you are in the market for very simple, easy, and effective parenting strategies this is the book for you. Heward and Dardig's book will help you to establish clear rules and expectations as well as self-control with a positive and proactive approach to help any parent. Not only are the stories and materials great, but they are also backed by years of solid research showing their effectiveness. This is a must-have book for any parent. The book will also be great for school counselors, educators, or really anyone who works with kids!
June 20, 2022
Phenomenal guide to a hearty behavioral strategy, contracting. The first half is for kids and the second for their caregivers and all of it is thoughtful and engaging. I bought four copies to loan out to the families I work with and would highly recommend to anyone looking to motivate their kids to work towards long- term goals and continued independence.
October 31, 2022
Let's make a contact is an enjoyable user-friendly book that provides parents with an excellent guide on how to positively impact common challenging behaviors they may experience with their child. The book is designed for easy and enjoyable read and use, together with remarkable thoroughness on behavioral contracting. In short, this book is designed for parent and child success!
June 7, 2022
One of the most user-friendly and engaging "how-to" books in simple behavior contracting for life changing strategies out there. In addition to being a terrific tool for parents, this is also an excellent and easy to follow tool to be used by teachers in addressing behavior in the classroom.
May 28, 2022
A wonderful resource for all families! The authors have done a fantastic job providing simple, pragmatic steps to help parents and guardians improve their children’s behavior.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews