Marble Jar Reward System

I have used this with my two kids (ages 6 and 8) for almost two years now and it works great. When they do something great; like clean their room or put away the dishes, they get a marble. However if they are fighting or not listening; they get one warning and then I take one away. we work this on a weekly basis. I think the short term helps them see the results. Then on Saturday they get a quarter for each marble in their jar. This way they can buy what they want or save for something bigger. My opinion.. Great system, rewards and punishment all on one.

I love this idea! I am a SuperNanny fanatic. She always uses this system with amazing results. I think that instead of using a reward that costs money, use something "extra" that you can do at home. More TV time, skip the bath for a night, extra dessert, stay up later, get an extra book at bedtime, etc. Chores are a great idea to help them learn marbles too. I think Supernanny does one marble per good deed. If they do something bad, a marble comes out. You could always say good behavior is worth one marble, chores are worth two. It depends on how big your jar is too. Another thing you could give as a reward is they get to pick dinner for a certain night. Just a few thoughts. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

I don't know how the marbles work, but we used a similar program, which was with cards and tokens. There was a maximum number of points/cards to earn in a day (I think it was about 15). Things like get dressed for school on time, brush teeth, make bed, etc. A few behavior-specific things like "stay in green at school all day" (this was in kindergarten.) Then we had a whole list of rewards we made up. Most didn't cost any money - things like, stay up a half hour late or, have a "campout" with dad in sleeping bags in the family room or other little outings with a parent. There were a few big-ticket items like the whole family goes out to a favorite restaurant (I think that was 400 points or something.) I think the lowest items he could earn were in the 40-50 point range, so that would still take about 4 days of getting almost all of the possible points. It seemed to work pretty well - it was just a hassle for me to be constantly remembering to remind him to turn the cards over and remember to award the tokens. But we did it for about a full school year, and I think he really liked it.

I may be starting something like this also.

I read something about having 2 jars. One for good behavior, and one for unacceptable behavior. They get a marble( or how ever many you want to start them with each day), and it would get placed in either jar depending on the behavior. There is a reward or consequence depending on which jar fills up first. This may curb the bad behavior quicker if they she the unacceptable behavior jar filling up quicker.