Token economy can be used to change children’s behavior

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Most parents would say their children have some behaviors that drive them crazy. I remember thinking I would have been grateful if there was a system that would correct my children’s behavior without my having to repeat myself. I got tired of constantly nagging and didn’t want to get angry and yell, but I didn’t know what else to do. I used to tell my children they only listened to me when I got angry.

Then I learned a system that made all of our lives easier and shaped the behaviors that needed to be changed. It started with targeting those dysfunctional behaviors and then tying those behaviors to good and bad consequences. It was the beginning of teaching my children how the real world works.

For example, we go to work to earn a paycheck. You cannot eat it, but you can spend it to buy food or other useful and necessary things. In other words, it is a token or symbol for what you can spend it on. This is the basis of the token economy. It is simple and easy to implement. Tokens can be pinto beans, lima beans, poker chips or any other item that can be easily carried in a pocket.

The first step is for a parent to target behaviors that need to be corrected. It is important to name the behaviors you want your child to have, not those you are trying to extinguish. The target behaviors could be getting up the first time he/she is called, no bad school reports, going to bed on time.

The next step is to assign a value for doing the target behaviors. The more important the behavior is to you, the higher value it is assigned. This is the first reinforcement when the child receives the tokens for doing what you want them to do.

The first two steps are done by the parent. Then the child comes up with a list of rewards or good consequences they will work for and want to spend their “paycheck” on at the end of the week. The list can even include things that don’t cost any money such as an afternoon with one parent with no siblings around or having a friend spend the night. The parent determines how many tokens each item on the list would cost the child, and obviously the more expensive items on the list would cost the child more tokens.

Having a mixture of items is important so at the end of the week the child can spend tokens. This is the second reinforcement. Reinforcements raise the probability that the behavior will repeat itself so it is important to let your child come up with the items on the list.

I have had good success with this system. It is a fluid system so as target behaviors become habit, they are deleted from the system and new behaviors are added. If done consistently, the token economy can be effective in shaping children’s behavior.