Tokens

A few days ago, we started a simple token system for Joey. We are hoping that earning tokens toward a prize will help to manage some of his, let's call it - aggressive behavior - toward Carlee.

I took some data for about a week and determined that most of Joey's unwanted behavior toward Carlee - taking toys, pushing, pulling hair, tripping, etc. - occurs during times when I am not able to completely attend to them. So my options are to never cook dinner or fold a load of laundry, ignore the behavior and let him torture her, or try to change some of the behavior!

I chose the third option because the first 2 aren't working out so well for me!!

There are two parts to my system. First, trying to arrange situations where Joey is less likely to engage in unwanted behavior. (The behavior analyst just took over my mom voice for a sec!) For example, if I am going to be cooking dinner I can either let him watch TV, give him a project to do at the table so Carlee is free to roam and play, or let them him play out on the driveway because this tends to produce less unwanted behavior). Second, I am giving him tokens for playing nicely with Carlee. He also earns tokens for following directions because this brings about a lot of stress in my life too.

The deal with the tokens is that he has to earn 10 to get the prize. Right now, I want him to earn the 10 each day. Eventually we will space it out longer so he is not getting prizes every day!!

The "catch" for him is that if he hits or otherwise harms Carlee then he looses all of the tokens and has to start over again.

So day one was fabulous! He was SO SWEET all day! Day 2 was, um, not so good. He never had more than 3 tokens before he lost them all. So today, on Day 3, he is still working toward those Buzz Light Year PJ's from yesterday! And he has been doing pretty well today! No hitting so far, but definitely still trying to push her buttons some.

The funniest part of this whole thing is watching him try SO HARD to earn a token!! Here is a video of Joey and Carlee eating breakfast this morning so you can see how hard he tries! :)



Now, Carlee can certainly feed herself a bowl of cereal, but he pulled her over, took the bowl, prompted her to say "more" and then would feed her. After doing this for a few minutes he says - "Mommy, I'm being nice to Carlee!!"