Token Reward Systems

While there are plenty of ways to reward a child for good behavior (praise, privileges, toys, candy, stickers…), we know that it is helpful to use frequent rewards when trying to start a new behavior. That could mean we start out rewarding the behavior every time it occurs, which can be difficult to do because of the cost in time or money, or because the child may get bored of the reward and it loses its value. Token rewards can help address this problem.

Tokens are items that do not have any value of their own, but help the child see that he is getting closer to getting a desired reward. Tokens can take many forms, including actual tokens (such as poker chips), beads, or other objects that can be collected in large numbers, or visual reminders like sticker charts or graphs. When selecting a token, it is important that it is very easy for the child to see his progress and understands what how close he is to getting the desired reward. It may help to consider that adults use token rewards on a regular basis: money is a token reward because its value is only based on what you can do/get with it. It can be helpful to choose tokens that have multiple colors or shapes so you can provide “big tokens” for major successes. An example with poker chips may be that 5 white chips can be traded in for 1 red chip, and 5 red chips can be traded in for 1 blue chip. To use the example with adults again, this is similar to how 5 $1 bills can be traded in for 1 $5 bill, and 4 $5 bills can be traded in for 1 $20 bill. 

 

After you have selected your tokens, you need to setup the reward system. This means identifying behaviors that will be rewarded. You do not have to be overly specific, but you need to make sure the child understands exactly what is expected. For example, “be respectful” is not clear and may not be ideal as a behavior to reward, but “follow first requests” is very clear and can still be used in many situations. Create a short list of behaviors that you want the child to work on. We keep the list short so it doesn’t become overwhelming for you or the child. The list should be written in a way that is very easy for the child to read and understand, and ought to be posted somewhere that is easy to see, but out of the child’s reach (lists are common casualties during tantrums). 
 

Creating the list is necessary and identifies the behaviors that will be rewarded, but the tokens still do not have any value. You will need to create a list of potential rewards that the child can earn by trading in tokens (essentially, what they can buy). It helps to involve the child in this process because the rewards the child picks are likely to be things that he values (otherwise you are just guessing). On the other hand, you do not want to let the rewards get too big or else the child is unlikely to ever get the rewards. This brings up a couple of important points in setting up token reward systems. 

1. First, the value of each token is equal to what can be bought divided by the number of tokens it costs. Simply put, if an ice cream cone costs 10 tokens, then one token is worth 1/10^th of an ice cream cone. 
2. Second, the longer the delay between a behavior and the reward, the weaker the effect of the reward on that behavior. Using the same example, if the child has a “good day” by following all of the rules that have been laid out, but the reward will take two weeks to reach, then the reward is going to have less effect on those good behaviors. 

Therefore, we want to make sure there are smaller, easily acquired rewards as well as bigger rewards. Smaller rewards should be possible to get “quickly”, meaning maybe every day for very young children (ages 2 – 6) and every 2 – 3 days for older children (ages 7 – 10). Medium rewards can be a little further out, and bigger rewards even further still. 
 

Visibility of progress is important for keeping motivation and compliance high (also true for adults as much as for children). Tokens help with this, but as more tokens are acquired, it becomes harder to see progress (it’s like trying to guess how many pennies are in a jar). This is truer for young children who have difficulty understanding what they cannot see. Note, young children may talk about things they cannot see or talk about future events, but they generally do not understand them like older children or adults do. Using the guidelines above about smaller, easily acquired rewards helps, but when the child is trying to work toward a bigger reward, it can help to occasionally show the child how much progress he has made toward that goal. If that can be done visually, it can be very motivating for the child. This concept of visually seeing progress toward a goal is important for helping young children learn to control their behavior.
 

Response Cost
Response cost is a form of punishment that uses the token reward system to send a clear message to the child when a behavior is undesirable. Where tokens in the token reward system develop value because of what can be bought and their ability to visibly show the child’s progress toward a desired reward, the loss of tokens clearly shows a loss of progress. They are a setback as a consequence of misbehavior. However, it is extremely important that the child can see the setback as relatively mild, temporary, and something he can easily recover from by simply correcting his behavior. If the setback is too big (for example, losing many or all tokens earned), then the child is likely to view the situation as a complete failure and may become very non-compliant. 

To use an adult example, a speeding ticket is a form of response cost used for failure to follow traffic laws. Speeding tickets are unpleasant because it is a loss of money, which could have been used for other things. The amount is generally “acceptable”, but if an individual lost their car because for breaking the speed limit, it would likely be an “unacceptable” loss and result in serious protest. Similarly, a young child who earned several days worth of tokens but lost all of them at the end of the week due to misbehavior may see it as an unfair behavior and a complete loss. As a general rule, the response cost for misbehavior should not be greater than the tokens that can be earned for the opposite good behavior.