Reward good behavior

I've had mixed opinions on this subject and would like more feedback.

We have a large den. We are breaking them into stations of smaller groups. We are considering giving each boy 3 carabineers. Misbehave and you lose a carabineer. If you lose all 3 carabineers you don't get a treat at the end of the meeting. The treat will be something cheap like a sucker.

They have a similiar set up in school. We don't want scouts to be like school, but anything to encouraging good behavior is a plus.

One opinion is they'll expect something all the time for being good or it will be like school and we'll lose kids.

Thoughts? Have you tried something similiar?

I would prefer to reward good behaviour, instead of punishing bad. Consider a bead jar.

Take a medium sized jar, put lines around the jar every couple of inches or so. Have a good sized supply of beads on hand. Everyone who comes in uniform gets a bead to put in the jar. Everyone who remembers to bring his handbook gets another bead for the jar. You can give out beads for any number of "good" things they do. Like - proper use of the Cub Scout Sign, helping a fellow Scout with the den activity, helping to clean up, etc. You can also have boys who do not follow the den rules (made by the boys themselves), or who act up, remove a bead from the jar.

When the beads in the jar reach one of the lines you do something special with ALL of the boys (take them for an ice cream cone, bring in popcicles, go on a fun outing, have a meeting just for games, etc. Don't make the lines on the jar to far apart so that it takes to long to reach it, but not to close together that you are doing something every other week.

I never was good at focusing on punishment as a deterrant. Kids are going to be squirrelly no matter what, but those that tried to "Do their best" got special consideration, i.e. denner position, sit by me, stay up later than the rest around campfire, start campfire, be my helper on a project, etc. The boys know it when they are being singled out for a small favor or two along the way. Compliments on how nice the uniform looks, a special thank you, or if they did a really nice job, a written one received through the mail, etc. A lot of my things are "stored" up and when the boy realizes that the many little things that you remember are tallied up and given a nice reward, he'll come to know that he's being thought about for more than just one little thing he might have done once and never again. Maybe the best behaved or the one who struggled the hardest to behave, get to carry the US flag in the closing ceremony, or lead the closing ceremony, or some other special recognition that isn't really announced as such. Maybe something like, "Johnny, would you go help yourself to the treats and then make sure everyone else gets some too?" When someone complains about how Johnny always gets to get a treat first, it can be used as a learning tool to let the boys know how much you appreciate all the work Johnny does to help out with things he wasn't specifically asked to do, or Johnny was doing a lot to help out with tonight's program, I just thought he should help out with the treats too, or whatever point you are trying to get across to the boys. It's surprising how quickly young minds can put 2+2 together on those kinds of lessons. It also gets away from the one action, one treat kind of traps that leaders quite often fall into. I had one boy complain to me about how all the nice things he had been doing hadn't been "rewarded". I told him I had noticed, but hadn't found a nice enough reward yet to let him know how much I appreciated all his work. When he finally became denner I reminded him that this was not because of the nice things he had done, it was because all those nice things he was doing made him the best leader in the den. The boy went on to Eagle in Boy Scouts, but not before he put in 2-3 years as an excellent DC along the way. It ended up he was giving himself so many rewards by his own initiative I couldn't keep up with him.

Stosh

Another thing to consider is to carefully plan your meetings to lessen the opportunity to misbehave.

Any time you provide unstructured time is an invitation to goof off or get squirrely.

Make sure your activities flow immediately from one to another, with no time inbetween. This may mean you have to set everything up before the meeting, or have another adult be preparing one activity while you're leading another.

The fewer chances they have to be naughty, the fewer problems you'll have. You'll all be happier, and have a better time.

The problem areas are the ones where they work at different speed. Little Johnny may not care about the craft and just throws it together, while little Billy wants more time to make his perfect.

We have 3 stations, set up before the meeting starts. 2 adult leaders and a den chief. We will typically set up 1 as craft, 1 as snack and the other will be games, songs, etc.

Ah, I see. Any thing you can set up as "filler"? Paper games, or puzzles? Can you make him a 'helper' - handing out materials, record attendance, etc.

THis may be a sign that crafts should be a less frequent aspect of meetings, or that you need to step up the complexity of the projects, to suit the boy's developing skills.

There is nothing wrong for rewarding behavior above & beyond what is expected but never reward expected behavior. If you expect the boys to be good, give them the guidelines & expect they will follow them. If they don't, they lose whatever they lose but if they meet the guidelines they have met the expected behavior. They get nothing!

Expected behavior? Out of 12 squirrelly kids if only one behaves by doing what is expected, shouldn't he be rewarded for leading by example? In our day and age, getting kids to do what is expected is a major accomplishment in life. If a DL could get his/her den to do what is expected, I'm sure they would get an award for something. Nope, it's all relative. If one boy is the least squirrelly, he gets the prize for the day. Work in increments and celebrate even the littlest of accomplishments. The boy who Does His Best and still has difficulty meeting minimum expectations, should still be rewarded.

Stosh

What do you have your Den Chief and ADL's doing to support management of the meeting?

Sometimes, having the game early (or even having the game dovetail the pre-opening) tires them out so they're more on task for the craft or the learning segment. Another option is to have a little bit of everything going on, with just a couple youth at each station. Always have a second/third activity at each station. Seems no mattter how often I plan any activity, I end up overestimating the time it'll take.

Finally, I really like ScoutNut's reward idea

My boys used to ask, "what will you give me if I clean up my room?". I would answer what my Dad told me, "you get to stay off restriction for one more week, deal?"

I made up "bucks". Tiger bucks, wolf bucks, etc... The parents and my assistant were given a stack to give out to the boys randomly. "Timmy, I noticed you were sitting there nicely." "Johnny, you did what you were asked the first time." So on and so forth.. Then once a month, the cubs got to bring me their bucks. For every five bucks, they got to pick from the "Cub box" which was full of cheap dollar toys. They had to keep track of their own bucks from meeting to meeting which gave them a bit of responsibility as well. I haven't had a den yet that it didn't work well.

Expected behavior? Out of 12 squirrelly kids if only one behaves by doing what is expected, shouldn't he be rewarded for leading by example?

Nope. He should be held up as the way you EXPECT the other boys to behave.(This message has been edited by evmori)

Den Leader had games, Assistant DL had crafts and Den Chief had the snack station.

So the rotation depended on the group. 3 groups - 1 at each station

"Expected behavior? Out of 12 squirrelly kids if only one behaves by doing what is expected, shouldn't he be rewarded for leading by example?

Nope. He should be held up as the way you EXPECT the other boys to behave."

Kinda does a buzz-kill on leadership doesn't it. If the boy shows leadership by giving a good example of what should be done, it seems like two different issues here. 1) Doing what is expected and get no reward, and 2) demonstrating leadership and get no reward? Guaranteed way of killing off one's program as far as I can tell. The next time one needs someone to break from the crowd and take on leadership, it just ain't gonna happen. Never could figure out how one can try so many different techniques to develop the boys, while at the same time do so much to counter it's effects.

I'm trying to get my boys to behave. I have one boy that steps out and sets a new agenda (i.e. leadership) by doing what is expected to draw the others up to a higher expectation. At the same time the adult leaders thank him for doing nothing more than what is expected in the first place. Nope, not for me. That kid'll be back with the rest at the next meeting and the leaders will be scratching their heads wondering what happened to the only kid who made an attempt to behave. It's called peer-pressure, and it'll kill off leadership faster than anything I've ever seen before. Peer-pressure is FOLLOWING, not leading.

Stosh

Expected behavior should not be rewarded. And no it won't kill anyone's program. if it does, there is more wrong than boys not behaving properly.