I am not sure about rewards for Cyan yet. She is still motivated by getting the chickens eggs, or cooking with me (which are both on her chore chart)... but Alex, well, getting cash has been a big deal in the past, so this will work out well for him. Also, for every missed assignment, instead of being grounded, he gets an extra chore that he has to do that he doesn't get paid for. This worked out GREAT for today, when Don's dept had a big pancake breakfast that he would have had to miss (being grounded). So instead of missing out on fun family stuff, he got 6 extra chores for the 6 missed assignments. Works GREAT for me... because I get my car cleaned out, the chicken coop cleaned (oh yes, not having to shovel chicken crap is wonderful!
Miss more assignments Alex (just kidding)), my back patio swept, the drive way raked, the front walk swept, and the laundry folded (Don will help with this)... all for "free". Works for me, he is good at that, so he gets positive reinforcement for doing these things, and I am not 'just letting him off' from missing work at school. I am ALL ABOUT this plan. lol... all about it. It makes it him against him. And I have been trying to find a way to do that for a long long time. When it is me grounding him, or telling him what I am taking away, it is like him against ME, and that isn't what I want... it won't work at all to instill good work ethics... it will just make him feel like I am unfair. Now I all have to do is leave him a list, along with his progress report (that shows what he missed). He gets it, and I don't have to yell at all. Perhaps he will change, perhaps I will have a very clean house and yard for a while... but whatever. It is in his hands now, not mine. And THAT in and of itself, is a huge deal for me. Too much of his success was in 'my' hands. Not any more.
Yes... the money felt great. I even got to put more on it today because one of our other credit cards payments were lower than I thought. We will have Best Buy completely paid off by the end of Feb... I feel it. One down, three to go.
Lauren, if you would like (Kerri and anyone else too) the clip art and work cards that I made for Cyan, I made them in Office Works... so you are welcome to them. Just email me at BlueRoseMama @ hotmail.com.
Val