The Easter Egg Hunt and the Ticket System

Better late than never! I've been saving this Easter post until I get the pictures into this thing and it's finally here!

As my first Easter living "on my own" and working, nonetheless, I wanted to be sure my son could still enjoy the wonders of the Easter Egg hunt! So, early Saturday morning we distracted Adam while eggs were stuffed and hidden. Now, you may be asking, "what about this ticket system you mention in the title? Kayla, you said there'll be a ticket system! What's that?" Well thank you, wonderful reader, because the Easter Egg hunt helped push the ticket system back to life.

The stash of Easter eggs (that I will reuse again and again...) and candy

Inside the eggs: Monies (see below), tickets, and candy!

 A few months ago, I purchased a roll of tickets and a small container to keep them in. Adam had a little Toy Story container from last Easter, and so we sat him down and explained the system. For every good thing he does he gets a ticket, and his ticket-reward increases with each thing he does. For example, he gets Mommy the remote half way across the room. He helped Mommy like a good boy, so he gets one ticket. He helps Bryan do the laundry, he may get 5 tickets. Cleaning his room, he'll get 5 tickets per toy box he's filled on his own. And so on and so forth. When he's bad, however, his tickets get taken away. He gets three warnings to behave, and then we take tickets in 5 ticket increments. Usually, he straightens up immediately--he wants those tickets, because they can be used for cool rewards and prizes.

The Ticket Rewards Box with price list. Rewards include candy, Hot Wheels, a Star Wars Light Saber (for a whopping 100 tickets!) and Monies.

The Ticket Rewards Box  is a small plastic shoebox filled with all kinds of goodies, like Hot Wheels cars, Curious George fruit snacks, or something of the like. As we find cool new things for him to do and/or have, (provided there's the little bit of extra money and/or item is cost-effective) we'll add it into the rewards box.

Price List for the Ticket Reward Box. Some extra rewards are added on as we go--like the Light Saber. And of course, "Time with Mommy and Bryan is always free!"

This Easter, we added a new reward---Monies. Adam always asks me "Do we have monies for bowling? Do we have monies for McDonalds?" And of course, I face the issue every parent has faced before: How do I handles this without him always wanting thing x? Special things like that are rewards, not just given out; how can I teach my son that? So, using his own wording and a few index cards, we created monies. He can turn in 5 tickets for one of the Monies (below), and turn in x amount of monies for the desired trip or reward.

We've had this system in place for about a month now, and we've already gotten a Knoxville Zoo Membership and had a few excursions. Adam's behaving better than ever (*knocks on wood*) and things are getting brighter as we move on!

I hope to write another post tonight on couponing, and my upcoming Ireland trip but for now--Have a good one!


Leave me a comment or message me if you wanna learn more about the ticket system, rewards, or the monies. --Kayla