Reward Jars

I am not a big believer in long-term change with rewards (and there's a lot of evidence to back this up), so I use them with my son VERY sparingly. What I have found which works for me is sporadic, spontaneous rewards. Usually these are 'after the fact' things: example, I send Kiddo to his room to pick up and he does such a quick job and doesn't gripe, I might just say "Wow! You really got it done quickly and all by yourself. This looks great! Now we have a few extra minutes-- want to walk to the cafe and get a little treat/ we have time for a game..." Whatever works for us in the moment.

When we have a specific behavior that is driving me batty, I might do something different by offering a 'challenge'. A few weeks ago my son was getting into a habit of arguing with me and I had a tough day coming up, caring for a friend's infant. On that day, I drew ten circles on a piece of paper. Then I sat down with Kiddo and had him notice the circles and count them. "Each circle means a penny. Every time you argue with me today, I'm going to cross a circle off. However many there are left at the end of the day will show me how many pennies you get." Out of ten, we kept five-- but the great thing was that by the late morning, all I had to do was ask him "oh, are you arguing with me?" and he'd change the subject right away. After seeing five of them crossed off, he knew I meant business!

I'd also say keep it simple and keep the pay-off small. Lastly, keep the 'reward' as connected to the good deed done as much as possible. As in my first example, the quick work cleaning up the bedroom meant we had more 'time', so I made a point of using that time in a way which was desirable to my son. Doing a great job keeping toys picked up might mean having a moment to trade out toys they've lost interest in for other toys in storage. (we rotate toys out regularly, so letting them 'go shopping' in the storage is fun). Or at the grocery store, cooperation and staying close could warrant a spontaneous "You know, I've had such good help from you today, you've been making good choices-- you can pick out a fruit/vegetable for your snack today." Spontaneous, unexpected rewards leave lasting memories and don't set us up for 'if you do X, you'll get Y' and all the negotiation and whining that often goes with it.

Good luck!

I was in this situation a year ago and I realized that because I 1. did not keep up with it and 2. was not clear about rewards and 3. I had poor follow through, it didn't work.
Finally, I sat down, budgeted the $$ for rewards and outlined with my kiddos the system of rewards. We put a writable calendar on the fridge, they are responsible for tracking their deeds and every two weeks they receive a reward (for them it is $).
So, If you are like me, find one process, plan it out and communicate it and then follow through (even if your kids are like, ugh , I don't want to do this anymore. . . nope, this is what we do:)
good luck.

We use poker chips in a jar. My kids earn them for good things they have done. Not the behavior I expect from them, but the above and beyond things they do. For example, when I asked my daughter to clean up her toys in her room, my son helped. He didn't need to because he cleaned up his own stuff. We have a box of little toys/coloring books/inexpensive DVD's, etc. When they have earned 25 poker chips, they can shop at our "store". I set it all up in our bedroom and they come in with their "money" to shop. They love it! But yes, you have to be consistent or it fails.

not sure how old your kids are. I have a similar system for my four year old daughter. She can earn stones if she gets to "great" or "awesome" on her behavior chart, and then can lose them if she has to move down to "bad" or "very bad". When she gets 10 stones we go out for ice cream. I LOVE that this works right now and am dreading when the system no longer works for us!

ugg, I told my kids we would start a marble jar once school got out. I just dragged out the marbles and the jars we used last year, But am a very inconsistent person so this is always as much of a challenge for me as it is the kids. ( kids are 7 and 9)

I made a chart of what expected chores are just for being in our family:
made bed, feed pet, empty dishwasher, sort dirty laundry, fold clean laundry, empty garbage.

so now i want to teach them to add new chores to their routines, so they have the chance to earn marbles for loading dishwasher, loading the washer, and there were a few more i can't remember right now.

I even came up with a list of no cost to me rewards, a movie from the library, late bedtime, paint DD fingernails, boardgame, craft project together. baking a dessert treat together.

I'm still trying to pin DH down on how much money each kid could earn as well. maybe the could earn $5 every time they fill their jar with 25 marbles? and then choose to spend it or save it. so they might get $10 by the end of summer. or how mamy marbles could equal an icecream cone or a game of bowling. ugg this is the bad part, figurein it out.

and then keeping it straight.

We used the rock jars to create balance in our son's life. He would get a rock in the health jar for eating healthy meals including his veggies or getting outside to exercise for 30 minutes. If he wants to play video games for 30 minutes, he must have 3 health rocks in his jar which then come out and are placed in the "couch potato" jar. The couch potato jar encompasses everything that is low-energy, non-productive like watching TV, playing on the computer, and napping. (He's far too old to nap.)
So he is learning to keep a balance between healthy activities and less productive ones. He also has an intelligence jar for reading and doing homework, a spiritual jar for praying, worship, and Bible study, he has a chores jar, a spending jar, and a tithing jar.
Hope this helps.