Offering tangible rewards for a behavior that should be inherently fun, interesting, or rewarding (like playing nicely with friends) could have more negative side-effects than positive. Offering rewards can sometimes lead to a very unattractive bargaining attitude with kids where they ask, ‘What do I get if I do this?” Either way, you’ll need to lay out those expectations when you first introduce the marble jar reward system so students have a clear understanding of what is at stake.

It takes the kids about two weeks to a month to fill up the cotton ball jar because it is a special thing and is not given for every little thing that they do.As your child practices positive behaviors, they earn marbles that they can then add to their marble jar. It worked! They went bowling the next day. What happens after the jar is filled and we’ve done the reward? Sometimes I will use cotton balls as an incentive: “if you ____, you will earn an extra cotton ball today.” (Works great for this, but I don’t do this too often because I don’t want it to lose its real purpose.)

When implementing the Marble Jar Rewards System into the classroom, you must pre-plan what behaviors you are looking for, communicate this to students, and continually remind them of the behaviors they must exhibit. I love how this rewards the children for specific behaviors as the children are rewarded individually.I have always wanted intrinsic motivation to be the reason that our children work hard, and this reward system is a way to highlight their positive behavior. A lot of times when parents offer rewards, they do it ineffectively,” she says. “They’ll offer a big reward, a material award, an award that comes a long way out, or rewards for things that aren’t entirely in the kids’ control.” The actual physical content of the reward doesn’t matter, it’s really all about the context and how it’s offered.Our oldest children have rubber bands higher on the jar because they are older & they need to get more cotton balls. Your child’s reward might be minutes of free play before bedtime where the number of minutes equals the number of marbles. There should be very clear expectations, known by all parties in advance, of what happens or what doesn’t happen when your child behaves a certain way. That’s why I think it’s so important that marbles aren’t taken out of the jar. But you can always remind them when they make a bad choice, that if they had made a different choice, they would have received a marble in the marble jar. If the kid can think through the problem, understand someone else’s perspective, and weigh different alternatives, that’s a glorious thing.” Set them up for success

Instead, Kennedy-Moore offers a few reward alternative that parents should consider before resorting to handing out lollipops 24/7: This is the exact thing we use in our house, but there are lots of different models and variations of this you can use.Perhaps you have a child, like mine that loves to get on the computer, well, believe it or not, there’s an online marble jar tool that you can use as well. While I don’t recommend this for preschool age children, it might be a good idea to keep in mind for motivation for a child that is having a bad day and needs a little extra push to change their negative behavior. Can you use something other than marbles in your marble jar? Instead of offering them a prize for doing what you want, perhaps try offering them a choice between two acceptable options.