I had what I think is a really great idea for a reward. Kenny loves candy, and doesn't get it very often. So, if there's a behavior that I really want to encourage, if I rewarded him with a candy for it, that would work out great. The problem is, I don't want to give him that much candy!
My idea is that, instead of actually giving him a piece of candy, I would allow him to spin a "wheel of fortune" device (probably from a board game), divided into a number of different sections. If the pointer ended up on the appropriate section, he'd get his piece of candy!
They say that intermittent rewards (i.e. like gambling) are the most powerful, so maybe this would really work. I don't have a behavior right now that we're working on, so I'll put this in my parenting tips archive.
Oh - bedtime is now working really great. What we're doing is setting up the kitchen timer for about 6 or 7 minutes. If we finish all our bedtime tasks in this time, then Kenny gets a story. If not, no story. This has speeded things up dramatically, and I don't have to do any nagging (other than occasionally saying, "Look, the timer's ticking!").
