Real Parenting Week 4: Rewards & incentives and household rules
Week 4 Rewards and incentives, and household rules
In this final session we’ll be looking at planning how to manage child behaviour using rewards, which enable parents to give attention to good behaviour, and household rules with consequences for when children break the rules.
7:30 Welcome & agenda
7:40 Review
Remind the parents that the subjects we covered last week were:
- ignoring and staying calm;
- clear instructions.
Ask if anyone has any interesting results after last week that they would like to share, or any questions they would like to ask. Once any sharing has finished, hold up a copy of the One-to-one time diary which you handed out last week and ask how their One-to-one time assignments went. Ask:
- Did anyone have anything to share about the One-to-one time assignment? Any problems? Any questions?
7:50 Video:
Rewards and incentives
7:55 PowerPoint presentation
You now give a short presentation about rewards and incentives.
8:00 Exercise in pairs
In this exercise we’re going to start to put together a reward chart.
Most parents will have multiple children, so ask them to start with one of the younger children because they are simpler to reward.
Assign the parents into pairs and ask them to turn to the Reward chart exercise in their Parenting Workbooks.
If parents only have older (i.e. only 8 years old and above), ask them to turn to the Incentive chart exercise in their Parenting Workbooks.
Ask them to work together to list three things they would like their child to do, and six possible rewards or incentives to suggest. The children can then choose which rewards they prefer (or can suggest others).
8:20 Group discussion
Bring the pairs back into the group as a whole and ask them:
- For those who planned a reward chart for a younger child, what possible low cost or no cost rewards did they come up with?
- For those who planned an incentive chart for older children what incentives did they come up with?
It’s quite possible they might inspire each other with fresh ideas
8:25 15 minute break
8:40 Video:
Household rules
8:50 PowerPoint presentation
You now give a short presentation about household rules.
8:55 Group exercise
Ask them to turn to the Household rules exercise in their Parenting Workbook.
With each rule, ask them to:
- suggest an appropriate consequence for breaking that rule;
- give the rule a positive name; one that focusses on what a parent DOES want the child to do rather than on the “don’t”.
If they get stuck they can refer to the next page in the Parenting Workbook where they will find ideas for consequences and names.
You can put the rules and consequences up onto a flipchart (similar to how Parent Support Workers Sarah and Nicola do in their Household rules role-play video
9:15 End of course and goodbye
Once they have finished the questionnaire, thank them all for taking part and give them the opportunity to ask any final questions. Ask them:
- What skills do you think you have learnt from these sessions?
- If you could change one thing about the sessions, what would it be?