That's the Ticket! A Behavior Incentive That Finally Works!

Over the years I have tried countless behavior incentives with my kids. I've done sticker charts, crayon color charts (that worked pretty well, but we kept losing the crayons), and behavior apps. As the kids have gotten older the idea of a sticker or a smiley face has lost its appeal, so I abandoned the reward charts for the last year or so.

Last month I stumbled upon incentive gold completely by accident. I was planning a movie night concession stand and decided to use a left over roll of carnival tickets as money to buy treats. At the time Dax was still having trouble with accidents at school, so I told him he could have one ticket for every day he stayed dry at school, and two if he stayed dry all day and night. To be fair I let the other two kids earn tickets for good behavior.  I turned an empty oatmeal container into a ticket bank with a printable that listed the behaviors that could earn them tickets. They can also lose tickets if they misbehave. By the time Friday's movie night rolled around the kids had been super well behaved and Dax was nearly accident free all week! I used these great printables from Catch My Party for our movie night.

Since the tickets had worked so well that week we decided to keep the ticket system and do a special family activity every week. So far we have done two movie nights, an ice cream sundae bar and a s'mores bar. I'm on a chalkboard kick right now, so I redesigned the ticket jar, and have created fun signs for each activity. I'll be sharing these later on the blog.

You can buy a big roll of tickets at a party store like Zurcher's for around $3. I covered a rice box and cut a slit in the side for a cheap and easy dispenser.

I can't tell you how happy I am with our ticket system. It has improved the kids' behavior and given us an "excuse" to spend quality time as a family.