Completing Another Incentive

When Kai was motivated last month to earn The Scrambled States of America Talent Show book, we knew that we had to set up another incentive program for him using the dvd of the book as the prize.

Similar to the last program, he could earn one state each day he was safe at school, or for doing certain non-preferred activities. Each time he earned a state, he could color it in on his map. And, when he had all 50 states colored in, he would receive the dvd.

This time, we gave him an additional way to earn a state – for not knocking on our bedroom door in the middle of the night. I thought it was about time for us to try to break him of that habit.

Alas, the incentive of coloring in an additional state was not enough. Night after night, I heard the knock, knock at our door, and I continued to tuck him back in bed, and then slept in the extra bed in his room.

Until this weekend.

On Friday night at bedtime, with only a few states left before he could finally get his new dvd, he decided that he would not wake me up for the next two nights so that he could watch the dvd over the weekend.

He followed through on his intentions and I got two nights of uninterrupted sleep.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, Kai was able to color in the last state on the map.

He was really excited to watch the dvd. We had a special breakfast edition of our traditional Video Nights, as we had donuts, fruits, and green smoothies while watching the video.

For fans of the book, you will be happy to know that the video does a great job of bringing all of the fun little aspects of the book to life. We all enjoyed it, and Kai wanted to watch it over and over again.

Now that we had a little success with him not waking me up in the middle of the night, we are looking to continue to motivate him in the hopes of breaking that habit once and for all.

Hopefully I will be well rested and have good news to report in another week and a half.

Reward Earned: Scrambled States of America

Kai loves geography and has had an affinity for the United States for quite awhile now. From the time he was about four years old, he could already identify each state by its shape.

One of his favorite games over the past year or so has been The Scrambled States of America. It features the states as colorful characters. Players try to win each state by being the first to give correct answers to various questions.

The game is based on a children’s book of the same title. We got the book for Kai for Valentine’s Day and he loved it. The story is about the fifty states lamenting that they are tired of being in the same place all the time, and deciding to mix things up so they could each see a different part of the country. The story is told an drawn in a very fun, creative way.

We found out that there is a sequel to the book called The Scrambled States of America Talent Show. As Kai really wanted it, we decided to use it as incentive.

We printed out a map of the United States and told him that he could color in one state each time he had a safe day at school, practiced piano nicely without complaining, or ran 13 laps (just over one mile) at the Rec Center. When he had all 50 states colored in, he would earn the book.

We have had the program in place for about a month, and for a long time, he wasn’t as motivated as we hoped he would be. But in the past week, as he saw how close he was to earning his prized book, he finally got excited about the possibility. He even volunteered to go running with me, and then did so nicely with no whining at all. It was a remarkable change from my previous attempts to get him to run.

The other day, when he practiced piano nicely, he got to color in his last state.

He had done it. He had earned his reward.

And as you can see, he was a very happy kid.