10 Creative Ways to Reward Your Child
Want to make your child or tween feel great about an achievement or some behaviour you are proud of? Positive reinforcement is the way to go, but every kid is different. What works for one child may have zero effect on another ( no big surprise there!)
My own girls are separated by 14 months in age - so similar in many ways from the outside, but when it comes to motivation, boy do I need to work to their individual personalities. Over the years I’ve often needed to get quite creative with their reward ideas, and have helped suggest ideas for friends too.
Different ages (younger is definitely easier let me warn you!), personalities and families need different reward systems to work for them. Sometimes a positive reinforcement for a job well done is a physical reward - a “thing”.
Things are something your kids are given and can be anything from stickers to a small item they have been asking for.
Alternatively you can reinforce the behaviour you like by rewarding it with something you know your child loves “to do”.
To Do can be a huge range of things - whatever would really mean a lot to your kid. Are they a into devices? Do you know that an extra 15 minutes on their iPad would mean a lot? Or would they rather have one on one attention with you and a story ? Maybe ask them - they might surprise you with what would actually go on this request!
Over the years, between my girls and my friends ideas, I’ve compiled a pretty cool list of rewards. Hopefully these will spark some ideas that will work for your kids and reward your child.
Remember, the trick is the reward needs to be something that motivates your child, if they don’t care about the reward they are not going to feel that motivated to achieve it or that rewarded even if they do!
Reward Ideas For Kids of different ages (these may not work for every age!
- Extra screen time / device time
- 30 minutes of one on one time with Mom or Dad
- Add favourite chocolate to shopping list
- Stay up 15 minutes past bedtime
- Rent a movie
- Bubble wand
- Sticker book
- Get out of one chore
- Make smores
- Choose food for dinner
- One extra bedtime story
- Go on a date night with mom or dad 13. Pieces of candy
- Trip to the park
- Money!
- Friends for sleepover
- Pizza night
- A new book
- Get ice cream
- Watch a favorite TV show
- Friend over for a playdate 22. Go bowling
- Ride to the mall
- Sleepover at friends / Grandparents 25. Go swimming