The Penny System

Our latest parenting technique with Elizabeth is what we refer to as the penny system. We give her ten pennies at the start of the day. They are kept in a tiny Rubbermaid container that she and Grant can't get the lid off of. This is important because I don't want either of them swallowing a penny and it lets her play with them, without actually playing with them. The principle is simple, if she misbehaves we take pennies away, if she does something good, we reward her with pennies. Brandon can call on his way home and ask how many pennies she has and judge what kind of day she is having. One day he called and I think my response was something like, "we started the day with negative five and I am about to start taking away from tomorrows, so if you don't want to come home I completely understand!" At bed time she gets to "feed" her piggy. Most days she has more than five to deposit, once she had 12. There are a few flaws. 1) When I forget to load the penny cup in the morning and don't remember until the undesirable behavior happens and then we start. 2) Sometimes piggy gets breakfast, because we forget to do it at bed time! 3) When she says, "If I do (fill in the blank) I get a penny right?" Um no, you don't get to tell us when you get a penny! We will reward pennies when we think you deserve them! For the most part it gets her attention and she knows she is in big trouble we when take all of the pennies at one time, because she will cry, "don't take all of my pennies!" You also have to have spare pennies and the penny cup with you where ever you go. I pulled the cart into the small appliance section at Target a few weeks ago to take pennies away, it wasn't pretty, but the behavior was corrected. What do we do with all of these pennies? We told her she could save her money and buy something that she wanted. I asked if she wanted to count the money in her piggy bank. Obviously, we have had a few other contributors feeding piggy, but she had been doing good so it was time for a bigger reward. Trying to build the picture that you get money for doing good things and that pennies turn into quarters and quarters into bills and money buys things you want is not an easy concept. I thought she could help me sort the coins, but that even proved to be hard for her. Why do dimes have to be the smallest? Why do they have to be different colors? I am pretty sure she thought that a bill was less than a coin because it was lighter! Anyway, she had plenty of money so I asked what she would like to buy. She had seen a play camera at the check out line at Wal-Mart the day before and that is what she wanted. So we put her money in her Hello Kitty sequin purse and went to Wal-Mart and picked out a Minnie Mouse camera. She looked so cute and like such a big girl! It was $2.50. I helped her pay because she said it was too tall for her to reach! Sadly, she was probably thinking of the credit card swiper that she couldn't reach! As we walked out the security sensor went off and the lady had to take it from her to desensor it. You should have seen the look on her face! "Why is this lady taking my new toy?!" We put some extra quarters in her purse so she could feed the goats/pony and llama a little extra at the zoo too! I can't wait to see what she wants to spend her money on next!