How to you manage and reward good behaviour? We have been trying out the Pirate Reward Box.
What is the best way to reward young children for being good at school or doing something well at home? We previously used a sticker chart but have found a great fun alternative that is easy to manage and reusable. We were sent a wooden reward box from The Reward Box for review.
The Reward Box comes in two designs, Pirate (blue) and Fairy (pink), and we received the Pirate version to try out with 4 year old twins.
As I said, we received The Pirate Reward Box which is a blue wooden chest with a hinged lid that looks like a pirate treasure chest. It uses wooden silver stars (20 supplied in a drawstring organza bag) instead of stickers that the children can put through a slot in the top. These boxes come with 2 sheets of stickers (letters and themed images, in our case Pirate) so they you can help the children personalise thee box with their names and images from the chosen theme. The hinged lid stays closed with the help of a small hook and makes it easy to remove the stars or replace them with a treat.
So the idea behind the reward box is the basically the same as a sticker chart. For good behaviour or doing something exceptionally well the child receives a wooden star that they can place in the box. Now depending on how you are rewarding your child you can either replace the stars every night by placing a treat in the box or maybe at the end of the week add up the stars to see if they have enough for a special day out etc. There are some great tips for different age groups on how to use the reward box on The Reward Box website. We were going to use it for a weekly reward.
So once we received the box and took out of its easy to opening packaging, the boys saw the stickers and wanted to decorate it straightaway. They both have short names so there were enough letter stickers to add both their names to the lid of the box (there are 3 stickers for A, E, I and O and 2 for the remaining letters and they are various colours). Once they had chosen the colours for their names I then let them pick the pirate stickers to decorate the box (there are a couple of pirates, palm tree, stars, pirate flags etc.). We spend about 30 minutes decorating the box to their design, and they loved it.
As I said, we are using it for weekly treats; if they collect 10 stars each (I have labelled the stars with their names so they have 10 each) they we go to visit one of their favourite places – SEA LIFE or LEGOLAND Discovery Centre (usually both, we have Merlin Annual Passes so isn’t a problem). If they don’t get the full amount then they get a small toy or small packet of sweets.
The Pirate Reward Box has been working very well and both boys love collecting their stars (they don’t like losing one if they are particularly naughty!). The box is excellent quality with a strong hinge but the stars are a little lightweight and easily broken (somehow they have managed to snap points off 2 of the stars – replacement stars can be purchased).
Overall, we found this much better than a sticker chart (no more looking for the stickers, stickers falling off etc.). It is reusable and is a great to manage their behaviour and give them incentives to do things. They loved being able to personalise the box themselves. One of these reward boxes would make an excellent christening, birthday or even Christmas gift.
For me, there are only 2 slight niggles; one that I’ve already mentioned is that the stars can be quite fragile (I think when putting a star in the box they must have pulled the star to one side which caused a point to snap off), the other is the price. With a retail price of £35 I feel it is slightly on the expensive side (although you do get the box, stars and stickers), but that said it would probably work out cheaper in the long run than stickers and new sticker charts and last much longer. Plus, if it helps manage good and bad behaviour it is worth the money.
I would have to rate it as 4.5 out of 5 as it is a great reward system. If the quality of the stars was improved and maybe a slightly better price it would definitely be 5 out of 5!
Rating: 4.5/5
RRP: £34.99
Disclosure: I was provided with a free Pirate Reward Box for the purposes of writing an honest and impartial review.
