Accountable Kids

What you see here are my big kids happily vacuuming and cleaning a table and chairs. Yep. You're Kermit-green with envy, I know. I was not holding a rifle to them despite what the neighbors have reported either. Here's what happened: Accountable Kids is a program we learned about through another foster parent at Arrow, our foster and adopt agency. They had success with it and told the other parents about it months ago. It was on my back burner for sometime before we finally ordered it. At $30 per kid and another $17 for the book on how to use it (which you REALLY need) it would put a hole in our budget bucket since we have no category for kooky-maybe-it'll-help-behavior-programs. However, after the last few posts, you know that I have been wallerin' in some self pity mud and we do have a budget category for mental health so we ordered it. We bought the quick start DVD too and popped it in for family movie night after the kit arrived. We told the kids to shut up and watch it. Sure did. They were quiet through the whole thing. Threat of raining Mommy drama? Maybe, but more likely they were just intrigued as the video does a good job of introducing the program. Afterwards Max said, "Hey, we should totally get that!". Teehee. I said, "We have it!" Then he argued with me and said no we didn't and then he was grounded. Kidding. But that is how it would have gone down if we didn't have this program because we are negative consequence type parents. Its how we were raised and yes, we know better, but the genes are hard to shake.

So they got to paint their boards which was fun.... until Ridgley started acting like a peacock on speed and stepped in paint and then onto the carpet after being told to please wait a few minutes before insisting on full attention.......this is the way of the cracked out peacock in it's adoptive habitat. Alas, the boards were installed on the wall and we began the program the next day which was the day before school started. They were excited and eager and Max took to it like a micro-man on a mission. Ridgley was more "what can this program do for me?" than "what can I do for the program?" but she has come around and it's working like a dream come true.

Accountable Kids is based on tickets and earning privileges. It is a positive reward system that also allows for disciplining through loss of tickets. They do chores (brushing teeth, making bed, getting dressed, sweeping, putting clothes away, taking vitamins, etc....just daily activities and some actual house work) and they earn tickets for completing a morning, afternoon and evening routine. For example, our kids have a card each hanging on their board for make bed, brush teeth, get dressed, personal care, and 'on time'. The board tells them what to do. I used to stand in the hallway and redirect lazy-mackrel-mouthed kids back to the bathroom 3-6 times before they would get everything done. Now, they check the board, do the chores and earn a ticket! One ticket in our house gets them 30 minutes of media (their choice). There are other aspects of the program that have catapulted our home, angry bird style, from militant-mental ward to happy pig dwelling. They can earn a best behavior card for demonstrating the fruit of the spirit. They earn special dates after 10 days of success. There are 'helping hands' that encourage them to offer to help with no reward expected and my favorite is bonus bucks. They can earn an allowance for doing chores outside the everyday scope and are beginning to grasp the concept of buying things for themselves after working for it. It's not rocket science but what I am realizing is that the creators of this program have really thought of everything! There is a sneaky little system of checks and balances that kicks into gear even when the kids seem to stop caring about earning a ticket (which never lasts long, btw). And it has kept us accountable for never letting them have access to media unless they are 'spending' a ticket. No more iCarly or Power Ranger induced zombie-itis. They set timers and turn it off quickly because they lose a ticket if they go 1 minute over. They are even learning about interest and borrowing because if they lose a ticket for bad behavior (being told twice, arguing, whining, etc) and don't have a ticket to pay, then they owe 2 tickets. This happened for the first time today. It has taken 3 weeks for one of our kids to screw up and be ticketless. Ridgley hosted a perfect princess pity party with all the glamorous sobbing, heaving and body thrashing you'd expect from a royal peacock. The difference was I did not scream and yell. I stayed calm and let the system do the work. She lost privileges and later in the night she was fine and fully realized she would have to earn two tickets to pay back what she had to borrow earlier and she knows she can be back in the green tomorrow afternoon if she falls in line with the rest of the peasants. I could write for hours about this, but ask me any specific questions or doubts you might have and check out the website. The site doesn't give away all the nitty gritty details, but I will. It has been LIFE GIVING and I cannot say enough how much I think you need this if your kids are 3-11 years old. On a scale of 1-5, this is a 5 STAR system.