Tickets: a good tool for us

A few months ago I first mentioned the ticket system we've been using.  It has been working really well for us, so I'm going to share a little more about how it has worked in our home.

A recent picture of our fridge

The ticket method originated with John Rosemond.  Here is his description of the way the system should work:

List no more than three specific misbehaviors on an index card (e.g. throwing tantrums, refusing to obey first-time instructions, being mean to the dog). Those are the misbehaviors you are targeting for elimination. Post that list on the refrigerator. Using a magnetic clip, clip a certain number of ticket-shaped (e.g. 2 inches by 5 inches) pieces of colored construction paper to the refrigerator, above the target behavior list. The child begins every day with, say, five tickets. Every time she produces one of her target behaviors, the parent points that out and removes a ticket. The first four tickets are “free.” They are the child’s “margin of error” for any given day. When the child loses her fifth (last) ticket, she spends the remainder of the day in her room (first reduce the room’s entertainment value) and goes to bed at least an hour early. As the child’s behavior improves, losing fewer and fewer tickets per day, reduce the margin of error gradually, but to no less than two. Or, keep the same number of tickets but add more target behaviors. Eventually, eliminate the system altogether.

We began this system with our 5-year-old, then added tickets for our 8-year-old, then added tickets for our 9-year-old.

We began by sitting each child down individually and briefly discussing the behaviors we were specifically working to change.  Then we explained the system: they would get so many tickets per day (we did 3 tickets for the older kids, 5 for our younger).  Each time ___{insert identified misbehavior here}___ happens, we will remove a ticket from the fridge, then when the tickets are all gone, this (see below) is what will happen. 

I was hesitant to send a child to their room for the rest of the day, as John Rosemond suggests.  Um.  That seemed so-- extreme.  I feared that it would result in a huge battle with a yelling/crying child in their room all day long.  And it would be a battle I would have to face alone (since Mark is at work), and I didn't really want to be dealing with that all day on top of everything else that goes on around here.

So in the beginning-- which we'll call Phase 1-- we said when the tickets were all gone, the child would have to go to bed one hour early (thus missing daddy's evening read-aloud time, which is a highlight in our home.)  This happened only a few times until we realized that this wasn't much of a punishment.  One hour early simply meant that the child would fall asleep one hour early (rather than the "I'm missing out due to my behavior" thoughts we hoped would occur), and of course- thus waking up an hour earlier the next morning, which isn't always super handy.  So we launched Phase 2, and that's where we've stayed.  When the specified amount of tickets are gone, the child spends one hour in his/her room, immediately.  I set the timer.  Then the child gets one more ticket after that.  If he/she loses that ticket, they need to be on their bed for the rest of the day.  The on-their-bed-for-the-rest-of-the-day deal has only happened with one child, and only three times in as many months.  And it has not been the traumatic event I thought it would be. 

We're now down to three tickets for even our youngest (5-year-old) child, and we aren't using tickets for our 9-year-old anymore.  The behaviors that we began the system for are definitely improved.   I've been thankful for this system in our home!