Animal Buddies is a Fun Interactive Version of the Classic Reward Chart

Positive reinforcement is always good for children and I am always looking for fun and unique ways to accomplish this task. Animal Buddies from Super Duper, Inc. is a great tool for providing children with that much-needed enforcement.

Animal Buddies is an awesome, well-made and well-thought out tool to help children learn what is acceptable. This is specially designed for utilizing during therapy, but it can work at home too. For us, we put the approximately 80 “food” tokens into a plastic jar (not included) and set it next to the vinyl Animal Buddies box. When either one of my children complete their assignment, chore, or other good behavior, they put a “token” into the appropriate mouth slot.

There is a bunny and carrots, a dog and bones, an elephant and peanuts, and a monkey with bananas. My children get to choose which they feed and sometimes they even like to mix and match the food and animal. Once the jar is completely empty (for us this takes about a week, but this could be adjusted for any time frame or group of children), there is a reward for both boys.

Our boys love filling the box with foods and they love their rewards for doing this. This is especially great because both kids are working towards a common goal and no one can or will get there before the other which really eliminates arguments. I think this is a fabulous tool for motivation and know it will greatly improve our home life.

You can purchase Animal Buddies on Super Duper, Inc. at www.superduperinc.com for $29.95.


Thank you to Super Duper, Inc. for providing a complimentary product sample for us to base this review upon.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Free Printable: Help Your Child Be More Cognizant of Listening with a Listening Chart

Some parents say that their children zone out while watching television and do not even notice they are being spoken to.  Well, our oldest son, who just turned 9, is that way while the TV is on, while he is reading, while he is playing computer or video games, and while he is talking or playing with his siblings.  All those things, take up quite a large percentage of his waking hours.  My husband and I were just getting fed up with his not acknowledging us when we spoke to him.  Once in awhile, we would get a half-hearted "What?", but those were just weak attempts to appease us.  It was quite apparent that our son had convinced himself that listening to us was optional.

After confirming that our son did not have an actual physical hearing problem, my husband and I tried all different punishments, including taking away whatever it was that our son was doing that was more important than listening to his parents.  We were really at a loss.  Then it occurred to me that I needed to show our son how big of a problem this has become.  Perhaps he was not totally aware of what he was doing?  So I made a simple listening chart.  Here's how it works . . .

1. You and your child agree on a really cool reward that he or she would work hard for.  Then write down what it is in the bubble on the left.
2. You and your child agree on a serious punishment that he or she would work extremely hard to avoid.  Then write down what it is in the bubble on the right.
3. Your child will earn an "X" if you have to tell him or her to do something more than 3 times.
4. Your child will earn an "X" if he or she outright disobeys you.  (For example, you tell your child to stop poking his little brother, but he does it again.)
5. If your child earns zero or one "X" over a period of 7 days, then they get the prize in the bubble on the left.
6. If your child fills the chart by earning 10 X's over the coarse of the 7 days, then they get the punishment in the bubble on the right.

TO PRINT:  Be sure your computer's printer is turned on and ready to print.  Click on the image below to enlarge.  Then right-click on the image and select print.  Use your browser's back button to return to this page.

How has this listening chart worked out for us?

We are on the 4th week of using this chart and our son has come a long way.  During the 1st week, he earned 7 X's.  On the 2nd week, he earned less.  On the 3rd week, he only earned one, so he actually got the prize.  We are currently 2/3 of the way through the 4th week and he has earned one X so far.

What this chart has done is made our son aware of how many times he fails to listen.  If he fills the whole chart, that means he didn't listen to us at least 30 times!  The first week, he realized that he did not listen at least 21 times.  Using this chart has trained him to pay more attention to listening.  Listening to his parents has moved way up on his list of important things to do.  We do not need him to be perfect because he is still a child, but we are happy to see how much effort he puts into improving what used to be one of his biggest shortcomings.


If you try using this chart, I would love to hear if it helped your situation!  You could probably use this chart to train your child to do (or not do) other things too.

Free Chore Charts & Behavior Charts for Children

With the close of the school year drawing near, many parents will be facing the challenge of keeping their children on a set daily schedule, offering their children educational activities, as well as reinforcing good behavior.  My husband and I whole-heartedly believe in using positive reinforcement to encourage and maintain specific actions and behaviors by our children that are especially desirable.  Depending on what our children need to work on the most, we always have at least one behavior chart, chore chart, or learning activities chart actively going.

I usually make my own printable reward charts, but like the idea of tracking my children's progress online.  That way I use much less paper, less ink, and I never need to worry about misplacing the charts.

I usually combine everything into one chart because it is easier to manage on paper.  The charts available on Goalforit do allow you to put goals from multiple categories altogether, but there are only 5 slots, therefore I ended up creating a separate chart for chores, behavior, and learning activities.  This is something to which I can easily adjust because it is not nearly as cumbersome as having 3 paper charts for each of my 3 children.

Some examples of what I would put on my 7 year old son's chore chart would be folding laundry, sweeping, and putting fresh water in the pet bowl.  For the behavior chart, I would include sharing and reading to his younger siblings.  For his learning activities chart, I would include reading chapter books, writing in a journal, 2 pages in his various workbooks, word searches, posting on his blog, and more.  In fact, I would have far more than 5 things for that category, so this particular tracking system may not be a good fit for his learning activities.  After all, I do not want to limit my son to only 5 choices for the whole week.

If you would like to learn more about these charts or try your hand at making a free chart or two, visit www.goalforit.com, where you will also find helpful goal charts for yourself, your tweens and teens, and your spouse.

This article was written as part of a paid campaign for BSM Media.

Free Printable: Good Listener Chart

The past couple of months, our 6yr old has been a real challenge. I know it's natural for him to go through stages of testing us, but he really has tried his best to ignore the clearly set rules of this house. As you can imagine, after two months of this, the atmosphere in the house has been very tense and negative.

So I had this bright idea to retrain our son to be a good listener. So we took him to the toy store to pick out a prize for $20 or less. Then I taped the chart below to the toy still in the package. Every time our son is able to do something we ask right away without our having to repeat ourselves, such as to clean up the toys at the end of the night or to stop tormenting his younger siblings, he would earn a sticker for his chart. When he fills the forty squares, he will get the toy.

(To print, click on the image to enlarge. Then right-click and select print.)

The verdict is still out on whether this chart will work. What I can tell you is that my son is able to earn many stickers in one day when he puts his mind to it. It's his willingness to participate continuously that is the issue.

If you end up trying to use this chart with one of your children, please do let me know how it works out for you.