Behavior Chart (For The WHOLE Family)
I was having some trouble with my daughters behavior, which comes as no surprise to me due to the lack of stability were experienced recently. I was constantly having to repeat myself and that's that sh!t I don't like. I knew something had to change and it had to change NOW. I decided to create a behavior chart, not only for my daughters, but for the whole family, myself included.
Pink is the best behavior possible, and red is the worst.
We start each day out on green. It doesn’t matter if we had the best or the worst day before, every day is a new day and another chance to be better!
We start each day out on green. It doesn’t matter if we had the best or the worst day before, every day is a new day and another chance to be better!
I split up our day up into three sections: Morning, afternoon, and evening.
If I get up on time and complete my entire morning routine, then I get a pink for the morning. If I complete the majority of my routine, then I get a purple. If I only manage to complete some of morning routine, then I get blue. Some is still better than none!
If I sleep in and do nothing productive in the morning, I get a yellow. If I sleep in, do nothing productive, and I have an attitude (since I’m not a morning person), I get an orange or red. The color I get depends on the extent of my attitude.
If my daughter wakes up in a good mood and completes her morning routine without needing redirection, then she gets a pink for the morning. The amount of redirection she needs determines which end of the chart she ends up on. If she wakes up in a bad mood and refuses to complete her routine without constant redirection, then she gets a color on the lower end of the chart, and I decide which color she earns based on the extent of her behavior.
The afternoon portion of the day depends on how we behave at work and school. If I am productive at work, I grade myself accordingly and vice versa. My daughters are graded according to how they complete their homeschool routines. If they had to be redirected a few times, they would get a yellow. If they only needed redirected a couple times, they get a blue. If they needed little redirection, they would get purple! If they were perfect and needed zero redirection, they get a pink! If their whole day was absolutely awful and they didn’t listen to anything, then she gets an orange or red. Once again, depending on the severity of their behavior and the reason behind it.
I also try to take into consideration that we all have bad days. I also try to take these days and use them as teachable moments. It’s okay to have bad days, but what is not okay is displacing your feelings on to others. Learning and using techniques to cope with your bad days is important. I feel that this is something that should be taught at a young age and I try to teach life skills to my children every time the opportunity presents itself.
Of an evening, our colors are decided upon based on our attitude and our productivity. Did we complete our daily chores? Was dinner a healthy, balanced meal? Did the girls eat all their food? Was everyone kind? Did anyone have an attitude? These are all things I take into consideration when deciding what color we get for the evening.
This intertwines with the responsibility chart that we use to hold ourselves accountable to create the ideal life for ourselves. I want my daughters to clean up after themselves without being asked. I want bad attitudes to be left at the door. Home is supposed to be our happy place. I don’t want any negativity in my home. I want our feelings to be communicated effectively and I want to raise my girls to be goal diggers, so I use this chart to ensure that I am setting good examples for them because I have to be held accountable too.
At the end of that day, we get a color based on the three sections of our day. I decide this by calculating average. For example, if I got a yellow in the morning, a blue for the afternoon and pink for the evening than I would average it out and that number decides how many stickers we earn.
Each color is equal to a number.
Red = 0
Orange = 1
Yellow = 2
Blue = 3
Purple = 4
Pink = 5
So using the example of my behavior above, I would add 2 + 3 + 5, which equals 10 and then divide it by 3, which averages out to be 3.3. I round that down to 3 and give myself a blue for the day. Blue, Purple, and Pink Colors are worth their number value in stickers, so 3, 4, or 5.
I’m not math whiz. In fact, I don’t even like math, but I use this method even though it seems complex for a behavior chart because to me, it’s what makes the most sense. When I created this behavior chart, I wasn’t sure how to decide what color to decide on at the end of the night. I wanted it to be fair. That’s when I decided to split up our days into three parts and find the average at the end of the day! I have found that it’s more effective this way as well because we have three chances to do better in one day.
We also earn stickers from our responsibility chart. Between the two, we have the opportunity to earn one ticket a day. We can save our tickets or we can trade them in at the end of the night. We can earn small rewards, bigger rewards, or extra big rewards.
For the kiddos, a small reward can be an extra book at bedtime or ten minutes of extra snuggles and this can be accomplished from just one day of good behavior. They can save for bigger rewards like a trip to the library or a trip to the park! Bigger trips like this usually take a week of good behavior to “afford”. Then, there’s even bigger rewards like a mommy daughter date, a family date, or a slumber party with a friend. These usually take month of good behavior to accomplish.
I do not take away stickers or tickets for bad behavior. We punish on spot for bad behavior and as an additional punishment, when we do not behave as we should, we do not earn as we could. As a result, setting us further back from our goal and reward of choice.
This behavior chart has been so effective in my household. Not only is my family being held accountable for our actions, but our girls are also learning different skills that will be vital to their success in the future... while having fun. It is a sort of allowance without breaking the bank. This behavior chart will work for you if you work for it. Consistency is key!
“Properly used positive reinforcement is extremely powerful”