WEBVTT
00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:07.120
Welcome back to the Starborn Parenting Podcast.
00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:08.240
I'm Rick Abina.
00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:10.480
And I'm Madeline Jurgensen.
00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.160
Madeline, I have a question for you.
00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:24.559
Have you ever used a token economy either at home or in your time when you were working as a behavior analyst?
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:26.640
So many times.
00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:28.000
So, so many times.
00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:29.519
I can't even count that.
00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:30.480
Yeah.
00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:31.839
What about you?
00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:47.359
My very first job when I became a behavior analyst, I had to learn how to use a token economy for an entire uh at this facility that I was at, we had adults and we had children.
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:53.039
And I had to give it, I had to teach this for the entire group, which was probably kids.
00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:59.280
We probably had 30, 35 kids, and adults, there were probably another 30 or 35.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.719
So this massive group, it was something else.
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:10.239
And I have to tell you, these token economies are incredible, incredibly powerful.
00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:15.200
And I feel it's something that parents should know about.
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:16.319
Oh yeah.
00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:20.239
And you can cater them to children's age, developmental level.
00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:24.319
Um, they can, yeah, they're super, super, super useful.
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:32.959
The thing about token economies, we'll talk about them in much detail, but there's really four things that you gotta know.
00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.200
Number one, what is it?
00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:37.680
And here's a spoiler alert.
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:45.040
If you understand how to use money and the principles behind it, you can get uh understand what a token economy is.
00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:48.159
Is it a bribe or is it a reward?
00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:53.359
That's something else that we need to talk about when we discuss token economies.
00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:54.959
How do you build it?
00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:02.480
It's pretty simple when you understand what the principles are and what the technique is behind it.
00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:18.080
You do have to know the principles of it, but it's if you're gonna do these things like anything else with behavior science, and people are doing these things, they just might not recognize what they're doing as part of behavior science, but how do you get good at it?
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:19.680
How do you have good timing?
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.800
And then what are mistakes that would make this system not as effective as it could be?
00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:33.840
So those are the things that we're gonna talk about today, and I'll start off by explaining what is a token economy in very simple terms.
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.159
You know, token economy is some kind of symbol.
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:41.680
That symbol could be whatever you think it could be.
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:53.680
It could be a poker chip, that symbol could be a sticker, which again, yeah, many people think sticker charts, they automatically think it's a token economy, but we'll talk about that later.
00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:59.360
But the a physical sticker could be a star on the wall, a tally mark.
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:20.960
If it's something digital, you could whatever that digital thing is, it should be consistent and it should represent you'd be using this with the behavior that you want, and the child or whoever is using this is going to turn in that token to something later.
00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:22.479
Let me ask you this.
00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:30.080
When you use the token economy, do you remember what the actual tokens were when you were using those systems?
00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:32.479
Some sometimes, yes.
00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:35.919
I mean, one I'll tell a store later was like a kind of a mint.
00:03:36.319 --> 00:03:38.080
I've used chips.
00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:44.960
I've used little pieces of paper, uh, just because that's what we had on hand at the moment.
00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:51.520
Uh yeah, it's been we've used little the most fancy one was like uh what was it called?
00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:56.560
Mario, like it was little Mario stickers, kind of these little like personalized chips we made.
00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:57.919
Yeah, Mario and Luigi.
00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:03.680
That's probably the most fancy we got, but sometimes they're just super simple marks on a page, check marks.
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:04.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:19.360
We used points, and we had these sheets of paper, and each what what was different about the the point system is we're talking right now token economy 101.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:22.079
Token, this happens for this thing.
00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:32.000
But what we did is we're a little bit more advanced, is we would give points, so this behavior could be a thousand points, or this behavior could be two thousand points.
00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:36.319
And that was a little bit more elaborate, but nevertheless, it's the same thing.
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:43.040
If you're writing a thousand points, that means nothing if you think about what that is.
00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.160
But this is the second part of the token economy.
00:04:46.319 --> 00:05:00.319
The real value is you are exchanging those points, those pieces of paper, uh, or if if it's a mint, you know, that that could be something in and of itself that has value.
00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:07.199
These things are going to be earned and you are uh getting value.
00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:12.079
Really, the cleanest analogy is a dollar bill or any of the money that we use.
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:22.720
If you went to another country or if someone well, let's just say someone gave you monopoly money, you know that that monopoly money outside of playing the game of monopoly has zero value.
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:24.800
Like you can't do anything with it.
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:34.800
Sure, maybe you're a child and you can pretend that it's something in a play situation, but it it doesn't have any value because there's nothing that backs it up.
00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:43.439
But with money, and when we get paychecks and when people get well, however they're paid, that has real value in its exchange.
00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:50.240
And essentially, those are the components that make up a token economy.
00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:59.920
Yeah, and you you touched on this with money because I these token economies isn't just something clinical that we kind of like stays in the clinical world, but we experience these all the time.
00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.680
As you point out, rightly so, money is a big token economy.
00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:06.240
Um, other ones are loyalty punch cards.
00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:12.959
If you know you you eat 10 pizzas, you get a you have the tenth one free or the 11th one free, as my dad always likes to go to.
00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:14.399
Hey, don't laugh at that.
00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:20.079
I you might you I'm sure you maybe you do remember this, but back in the day with Subway, I used to love Subway.
00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:20.399
Oh, yeah.
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:23.360
You would get these little cards and they would give you a sticker.
00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:24.399
Do you remember this?
00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:26.240
Or maybe that was just I do, I do.
00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:29.519
I wasn't a huge Subway fan, but I do know about this, yes.
00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:31.519
I loved it.
00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:42.319
I would love those, and and I would I became loyal to Subway because if I ate X amount of things, I would turn my car in, I'd get a free sub.
00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:46.800
I mean, my behavior is being controlled by the token economy.
00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.600
So that uh you know that punch card really resonates with me personally.
00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.639
Yeah, there's a there's a pizza place in Wisconsin.
00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:58.560
My dad's gonna kill me for not being able to say the name because I can't shout him out right now.
00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:02.800
But it's they have like magnet pieces that are like slices of pizza.
00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:06.240
So when you build, you get a magnet piece and you can build a whole pizza.
00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:09.600
And when you build the whole pizza, you bring it in and you get a whole pizza.
00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:17.680
So that was like when we yeah, when we visited our family in Wisconsin, it was like my dad had to go to the pizza place because we had to continue building our pizza.
00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:20.720
Oh, I love that.
00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:22.480
But yeah, so those are the things.
00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:23.360
Yeah.
00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:24.399
They work.
00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.800
And uh frequent flyer miles.
00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.839
I love frequent flyer miles.
00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.759
And again, that's a token economy.
00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:39.519
There's so many, when you think about these behavioral principles that we're talking about, they're throughout our society.
00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:45.839
It's just that, you know, as we're talking about these things and we're saying, hey, if you're a parent, this is how you could use it.
00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:52.319
A lot of people just don't recognize what are the behavioral principles behind these things that are always running.
00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:56.000
And uh, yeah, it's those are really good examples that you gave.
00:07:56.399 --> 00:08:00.720
And now that I think about it, Rick, you're actually pretty you're all about the loyalty programs.
00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:02.160
I know a couple loyalty programs.
00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:03.360
You're you're real loyal.
00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:06.319
I am absolutely loyal.
00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:10.959
And because you know me, you know how these people can reel me in.
00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:11.920
Oh, I know.
00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:24.560
When we go places for conferences, um, you know, I we have to be very picky about where we go, what locations we can stay at, because then otherwise Rick and I will be like 45 minutes apart from each other because he has to go to his loyalty hotel.
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:26.319
It has to be a Marriott.
00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:30.319
I am brand loyal to Marriott, and I will admit that publicly.
00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:37.200
Uh every year I I stay and I travel so much I become this, I don't even know what it's called, like an elite, whatever.
00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:45.039
So they give me a fancy name, they give you all these perks, but yeah, I am controlled by that, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:49.679
Yeah, and the behavioral magic about these whole token economies is the timing.
00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:53.919
So like tokens, they have to be marked by the second that it happens.
00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:57.840
So like the second you you book your miles, book your hotel, you get those.
00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:04.080
The second you, you know, do something that's on your sticker chart or whatever, then you get that sticker immediately.
00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:14.159
It's the timing so that you get the token immediately after the behavior happens, so that you can really draw that association between get the behavior itself and the token.
00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:16.720
That's such a good point.
00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:20.159
This is where the skill comes in.
00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:28.480
And we can talk about that now and later, but if that timing doesn't work, then your token economy is not going to work.
00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:32.480
And as we we talk about building the token economy, you have to have the timing.
00:09:32.559 --> 00:09:34.159
So that's a that's a fabulous point.
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:39.120
Now, I'd like to point out that this is established science.
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:40.960
It's deep science.
00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:51.759
I remember reading a book when I was a grad student, and this was a book that talked about token economies, and like they were built back in the 60s.
00:09:52.000 --> 00:10:04.879
And you know, some 60 years later, people still across classrooms, homes, clinics, businesses, everyone's using these token economies.
00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:10.240
And uh some of this went back to like literally the 30s.
00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:17.279
There were these researchers that gave these chimpanzees these uh they were like poker chips.
00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:26.879
And these poker chips could be dropped into this like vending machine contraptions, and these chimpanzees would then get grapes.
00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:40.399
And the chimps, what was amazing about this, this discovery back in the 30s, is the chimps would work just as hard for these poker chips than they would for the real food.
00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:49.360
And when you start thinking about that, like whoa, that really shows you the power of the behavioral principles that are at play.
00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:57.679
Because a poker chip by itself, like if you just went to your dog and started flashing a poker chip around your dog, your dog's just gonna look at you funny.
00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:01.679
And maybe it'll lick the poker chip or lick your hand because it likes you.
00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:03.759
But it doesn't have any value.
00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:15.440
But when these things become paired, as in this study that they showed, which was paired with these grapes, what these chimps loved, then it became it had worth.
00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:21.360
And, you know, they followed this up with other uh different kinds of tokens.
00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:27.200
And through time, it was just discovered that token economies work on these behavioral principles.
00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:32.799
And some of the discoveries were when you do this, you're making a promise.
00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:40.559
And if someone gives you, if you get a token and you don't get to cash it in, that creates all sorts of trouble.
00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:49.120
And they found that out in this research that these animals would get super upset when they didn't, and it would be like us.
00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:53.519
Uh, you work all week and all of a sudden your employer doesn't give you your paycheck.
00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:59.440
You're not gonna take very kindly to that, and that's what we see in this early research.
00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:04.879
So the the principle behind tokens, as I said, they're established science.
00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:05.759
Mm-hmm.
00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:11.200
I I love any any chimpanzee or monkey behavioral analysis research.
00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:12.960
They're so fascinating.
00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:14.159
Yeah.
00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:19.200
So one of the things we want to talk about too is like the difference between bribe and reward.
00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:22.240
So these are questions that we get asked by a lot from parents.
00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:25.200
It's like, you know, isn't this just bribery?
00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:26.320
And it's not.
00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:29.200
And it, but you know, you can be if you get it backwards.
00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:32.399
So the idea is that rewards come after the behavior you want.
00:12:32.559 --> 00:12:37.200
So if you, you know, say you started homework on your own, here's a token.
00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:38.559
Great, great use.
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:55.360
But if the kid is throwing a tantrum and you start saying, you know, if if you please stop, please stop throwing a tantrum or screaming and I'll give you a treat, or I'll give you a token, that becomes more of a bribe because isn't you're giving the token conversation during the middle of the tantrum.
00:12:55.440 --> 00:13:04.159
So then the kid learns that if they start screaming, they're they're gonna get a treat because you're gonna give the treat in an attempt to stop the screaming.
00:13:04.399 --> 00:13:13.360
So you never you never want to talk about tokens or try to refrain from talking about tokens when your kid is doing things that you don't want them to do because you're just gonna increase that behavior.
00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:18.000
So instead, you want to save all that token talk for times when they're doing something right.
00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:27.279
Like, you know, like I said, the kid's doing their homework where the kid says something nice to his sister, and you say, Great job saying something nice, you know, being nice to your sister, you know, saying thank you.
00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:28.559
Here's your token.
00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:29.759
Yeah.
00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:38.720
Boy, you said a couple things there that are just so important that if you're using tokens, you must focus in on that wisdom that you just shared.
00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:44.799
And reinforcing what you said, we've talked a lot about rewards.
00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:49.600
It is a fundamental principle of behavior.
00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:54.399
Behavior that's rewarded is gonna happen more often in the future.
00:13:54.960 --> 00:14:01.919
And that fundamental premise of behavior science drives so it's consequences.
00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:05.360
This is one of the key findings in our field.
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:15.360
And it's very understandable for a parent who's just learning about behavior science to say, whoa, wait a minute, I don't want to be bribing my kid.
00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:23.759
Bribes are not a good parenting technique, and understanding the difference, as you pointed out, is really important.
00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:28.240
And yes, we're not advocating that parents bribe their kids.
00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:30.559
That's not a good way to raise kids.
00:14:31.120 --> 00:15:02.720
I mean, bribery in general doesn't have any clinical evidence to it, whereas rewards has lots of clinical evidence to it, and using these tokens is a way to help show the person that like you yes, you can use praise as we'll talk about, but this token is something that they have and they can see it and they can turn it in later, and that's really an important point, and I wanted to emphasize what you just said, and just note how important that is.
00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:11.200
Second thing I would also uh like to echo is when you talked about you're in a crisis situation.
00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:16.159
You don't want to be using tokens at that point.
00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:17.840
And you know what else you don't want to do?
00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:25.120
And I I can tell you I've seen this happen with tokens in staff, and maybe you've seen something like this.
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:35.440
The staff, maybe they're not very well behaviorally trained, so you teach them in a clinical situation how to use these tokens, and it's powerful.
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:40.799
Children will work very hard for tokens, and you know what the staff do when the kids are being bad?
00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:44.559
Or what again, this is what they would say, the kids misbehaving.
00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:49.120
I'm gonna take that token away from you if you don't stop doing X.
00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:51.360
No.
00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:54.080
Terrible thing to do.
00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:54.960
Mm-hmm.
00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:55.600
Yeah.
00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:58.240
My husband almost I mentioned this in the other episode.
00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:05.600
My husband almost did that with our charts for my daughter was going to the when we were teaching her how to go to the bathroom, and he was he was like, Well, we can just take it away.
00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:08.000
Like, no, no, no, no, don't do that, don't say that.
00:16:08.159 --> 00:16:10.559
Like, really didn't side conversation, sidebar.
00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:11.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:16.000
It's uh sometimes you make these mistakes in the heat of the moment.
00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:19.039
I know I have like no one's perfect.
00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:21.519
You can only do the best that you can do.
00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:33.840
And with your behavior science, if you understand what it is, and if you understand the rules, things happen where maybe you're it's a heated moment and you got hurt.
00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.360
Maybe the kid accidentally was throwing a tantrum and you're really mad.
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:47.840
Like things can happen in the heat of the moment, but understanding and giving yourself grace that if you do make a mistake, that it's okay, just don't do it again.
00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:58.320
Uh and you know, with with these tokens, beyond, you know, you you're talking about some issues of well, should parents would they want to use tokens?
00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:05.519
Another issue that comes up is if you use tokens, is this something that's gonna kill their motivation?
00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:08.960
And I won't go into the research.
00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:12.480
We have so much research behind token economies.
00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:23.440
There are some people out there, and uh let's just let's just call this out right now so that when parents start reading more about behavior science, they understand that there's people like this out there.
00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:32.000
There are people that don't like behavior science, and there are people that will say, oh, well, in this study over here, it showed that rewards don't work.
00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:36.400
And when you start looking at these people, they have a very clear agenda.
00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:56.960
They're they're writing books, maybe they're supporting some other approach, and they are going to denigrate people that are already doing successful things, and you get this that uh they'll say, oh, well, here's the here's a research study that shows that token economies will kill motivation.
00:17:57.200 --> 00:18:05.920
If you look at those studies, there are reasons why those are flawed and are coming up and you have misinterpretations.
00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:15.839
We see that when children earn tokens, like maybe they're doing math, their interest in doing math on their own is held up.
00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:19.920
It doesn't collapse even when you start taking these tokens away.
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:35.920
So this idea that you're using tokens and it's somehow going to subvert someone's motivation, it just doesn't hold up to the information that's already out there.
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:42.720
Yeah, you made a really good point about that, you know, they don't lose their interest just because you have or giving the tokens.
00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:55.440
And it made me think about like it I also really like token economies, especially for parents, because it helps parents also cue in to their child's behaviors and look for things that they want to see increase.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:03.920
And so, you know, with the token, the kids also get praise, attention from the parents, and that's honestly what most kids really like.
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:09.039
Like the most kids just really like when their parents are proud of them, happy for them, excited for them.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:14.319
Um token economy is almost like a special way to create additional bonds with parents and kids.
00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:15.839
Yes.
00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:26.240
Imagine you have a child and you give them a token and you say, You did such a great job cleaning up after dinner.
00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:37.440
And you're pairing that that that warm phrase, the smile, the genuine intent you're putting in that, and the child has this token, they receive the token.
00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:45.039
Behavior science is about using these to help form these strong relationships between parents and their children.
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:57.359
And that absolutely happens, and at some point, those tokens will be faded, and yet you being warm and you giving the praise, that's still going to be able to maintain their behavior.
00:19:57.440 --> 00:19:58.799
So that's a really good point.
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.119
All right, so let's talk about how we actually build these.
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:08.960
What are kind of like the four decisions that we want to keep in mind when we're building one of these token economies?
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:09.920
Yeah.
00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:18.240
Let me start off by recommending if you're new to token economy, this is the first time you're using it, don't pick a hundred behaviors.
00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:21.519
Start off with three or maybe four.
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:31.359
If you pick a few target behaviors, then that's going to allow you to do many things at once.
00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:39.519
It's going to help you work on your delivery, as we've already mentioned a few times.
00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:46.559
When you provide a token, you need to do that token immediately after the behavior that has happened.
00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:51.920
And if you if you're trying to remember, okay, wait a minute, does this behavior earn a token or doesn't this behavior earn a token?
00:20:52.160 --> 00:21:00.000
Juggling all of this other information while you're still trying to be good at using these token economies makes it challenging.
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:07.680
So the very first thing that I would say is just pick one, two, three.
00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:09.279
Let's just stop there.
00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:11.200
Let's just start with one to three.
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:13.279
Make that your max.
00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:22.160
And if you go from there, you can't go wrong because you can then also know that you these are the behaviors my child's gonna earn.
00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:24.799
It'll be clear to them, it'll be clear to you.
00:21:25.279 --> 00:21:26.880
So I would start right there.
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:27.599
Okay.
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:30.720
And making sure that those behaviors are observable, right?
00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:37.839
Like because it's like just being good or something, or like be good, don't be bad, would be a terrible token economy.
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:44.319
Like you want to be something really specific, like I want um backpack by the door packed by 7 a.m.
00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:48.240
Or I want say thank you after someone gives you something.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:57.200
You know, something like very specific so that then the child and it's clear to everybody what behaviors count as tokens and what behaviors do not count as tokens.
00:21:57.519 --> 00:21:57.680
Yeah.
00:21:57.839 --> 00:21:59.839
You and I have done research on tokens.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:06.319
Pinpoints, that also happens to be in that great book called Why Your Child Does That or Why Your Kid Does That.
00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:14.640
And pinpointing a behavior says very specifically, this is the behavior that I want to work with.
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:41.279
And as parents, if they are able to understand that this is the thing that is going to receive a token, that's going to make life much easier for them and the child because something that is very large and requires lots of behaviors or something that is unclear, that's going to be challenging.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:47.039
So being able to look at those specific behaviors are important.
00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:51.519
I would add a third component to when you're picking these behaviors.
00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:53.920
Yes, we want to have one to three max.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:56.559
Yes, we want them to be observable.
00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.039
But pick growth behaviors.
00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:02.240
Remember when we talked about that back in episode six?
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:07.599
You know, there's behaviors we want to grow, and then there's behaviors that we want to reduce.
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:19.680
Picking behaviors that we want to be in that category of growth behaviors is going to be helpful because you want them to go up, and guess what tokens do?
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:27.119
They are rewarding a behavior, and that behavior is going to occur more, there's going to be a higher likelihood that it occurs in the future.
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:29.680
So pick growth behaviors.
00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:34.960
Yeah, that's such a good, that's such a good point to mention, the growth behaviors.
00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:49.039
I remember sitting across from these parents that I was working with, and we had talked about starting a token economy, and I, for their homework that week, I was gonna, they had to make a list of behaviors that they wanted the kid, you know, the behaviors for the token, token economy.
00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:54.319
And I thought as a new BCBI, I'd done a good job explaining what the task was when I came back.
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:58.640
They gave me this list, and it was just a laundry list of everything that kids shouldn't do.
00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:02.319
Like, don't hit your sister, don't come to the table late, like don't do this.
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:05.599
And I was like, and I was reading this, I was like, what is your kid supposed to do?
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:10.559
It reminded me of those, you know, the the posters you might see at uh beach boardwalks.
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:12.880
It's like, don't roller skate, don't walk, don't run, don't think.
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:15.039
And you're like, what are we supposed to do?
00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:30.160
And it's like, you know, you we we like to think that our kids can come up with these ourselves, but the fact that the parent had difficulty thinking of things that the child should do makes, you know, you can't, you you would imagine that the kid is also having a difficult time figuring out what they can do.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:31.279
Yes.
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:33.039
That that's a solid point.
00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:40.079
So pick growth behaviors and don't try to stamp everything out, you know, these annoying behaviors.
00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:55.200
Being humans, especially kids trying to figure things out, uh, the positive relationship is gonna develop more as you're giving, providing these tokens for behaviors you want to grow.
00:24:55.440 --> 00:25:02.400
And you can, we're not saying give your kids free reign, let them just do whatever they want to do.
00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:12.640
If you're smart about things, you can actually target a growth behavior that would be incompatible with these things that you don't want them doing.
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:27.200
For example, let's say that you want to go to uh a restaurant and your kids love this whatever the maybe it's some burger joint, and they run up to the the counter.
00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:45.680
If you gave them a token for we're gonna calmly walk to the uh front of the line or stand in line or whatever it is calmly, you can reward that behavior, and by virtue of you rewarding that, then they're not gonna be running to the front.
00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:50.799
And that's a little clever use of behavioral engineering that you can do.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:53.200
Yeah, yeah, we do that all the time.
00:25:53.359 --> 00:26:13.119
My daughter, she was we actually just did that today because she was sitting, we had this like plastic box that keeps all like extra clothes in, and she was trying to sit on top of it but it's very flimsy, and so I was like, you know, don't sit on the box, and then I immediately was like, Boy, you can sit over here, and I you know, I pointed at her new cushiony chair thing that she well, not new, it's like a this like foam block.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:16.400
And she sat on that, she was very happy, and it's like, yeah.
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:26.319
I think it's like if you give your kid a lot of growth behaviors, they don't really have space or time to do a lot of the the behaviors you don't want to see because they're just doing a bunch of things you do want to see, which is good.
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:30.319
Um, but yeah, so the other one is like how to choose your tokens.
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:33.039
So now we talked about like picking your behaviors.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:37.680
Now, when you choose your tokens, you can do pretty much anything that's countable.
00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:45.920
So stickers, poker chips, marbles, as long as there aren't like younger kids around, um, marks on a page, notebooks, stickers.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:27:00.880
Um, there's one thing I do have to note with the stickers or any of these items is you want to make them almost as plain as possible, very simple things, because you don't want like, oh, I don't want this token, I want this one, I don't want this sticker, I want this sticker.
00:27:01.119 --> 00:27:04.000
You know, you don't want them to have to like pick a lot and make decisions about it.
00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:08.160
It's just the the token is just sort of getting them to the reinforcer that they want at the end.
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:11.200
So it's it sometimes the simpler ones are the better.
00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:14.000
Yeah, that's a that's a good point.
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:24.319
If the tokens are something that are going to create a problem either in the delivery of giving these tokens or wherever you're keeping these tokens, that can be a problem.
00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:42.319
So having something that's reliable, the token almost doesn't matter in the sense that whether it's a star, whether it's you writing something, you giving something physical, or if it's something digital, maybe you have an iPad and you touch a button and there's a star or there's whatever it is, that's all fine.
00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:46.559
It's the delivery and being able to exchange this for reward.
00:27:46.720 --> 00:27:48.720
That's that's the that's the magic here.
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:49.440
Mm-hmm.
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:50.559
And storing them.
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:54.319
You mentioned that briefly and what you just said is that like you want a place to put them.
00:27:54.559 --> 00:28:02.240
I am not just gonna give the kid a token and they're gonna run around the house and lose it, or like you want a place for them to store these tokens after you give them.
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:04.960
And play letting the kids place the tokens themselves.
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.640
That's something that we do a lot in precision teaching, is like kids make their own marks.
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:26.400
And so if you have like a board that you can place it on or a tablet that you're running the token economy in, having the kids actually select the tokens themselves, place them on the board, that really gives them ownership and shows them that cause and effects between the behavior that they did and the token that they're receiving.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:27.440
Yes.
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:35.599
I guess I'd also point out when you think about tokens and choosing them, you need to be age specific.
00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:51.039
And if you have a young child, maybe they are in love with Thomas a train, but if you're doing this with teenagers or younger kids, they might not really be turned on by Thomas a train or they might feel infantilized.
00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:57.519
So make sure that whatever you're choosing is something that is age appropriate.
00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.000
Yeah, really good point.
00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:11.279
Another point would be okay, we talked about pick one to three targets, how do you pick those, what are some important things, choosing your tokens, that's number two.
00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:15.200
The third thing would be having a reward menu and setting the prices.
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:19.119
This is where you know your child better than anybody else.
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:29.920
You have to come up with a way, uh, a menu of different items that your child will want to work for, and they have to be graded.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:43.920
Let's say that you have uh maybe you you earn five tokens and there's this little plastic toy that's oh, okay, that's nice, and maybe that's worth five tokens.
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:58.160
But if you have maybe a slice of paper that says, you know, you've earned uh a trip to Dairy Queen, if you put a price on that for five tokens, then you're gonna be making a lot of trips out to Dairy Queen.
00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:08.079
You have bigger ticket items and smaller ticket items, and as children are working, you know, they're earning these tokens through their behavior.
00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:10.960
I guess you can call that work in the sense.
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:17.680
They are earning this through their behavior, and when they go to exchange this, you have to have the reward menu.
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:30.799
So the reward menu have to be things that they want, and it has to be like a fair exchange of this is the amount of behaviors you worked on, and this is the reward that you are exchanging it for.
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:33.920
Do you think that's something you could bring the kids into?
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:34.880
The discussion?
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:37.440
Like depending on the age, you know.
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:44.160
I think that's some a good opportunity to get that social buy-in with the the kids is like, okay, what do you think is fair?
00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:47.119
What do you want in the store, in your token store?
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:55.920
Um, and then if the you see the kids like maybe not getting interested anymore, maybe refreshing the store, getting new items, new ideas, all good.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:58.000
Yeah, I love that idea.
00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:07.680
Everything we can do to help the children have ownership is gonna be positive and make this thing happen and make it run smoother.
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:17.680
I guess if I were going to have a caveat here, it would be that reward has to be earned.
00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:23.440
If if a reward is not earned, uh well, let me say it this way.
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:28.319
If there are some things that are available for free, why would why would someone earn it?
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:29.759
Think about money.
00:31:29.920 --> 00:31:38.559
Uh if if you just give your child$5, and then on the other hand, you're like, hey, uh every Friday they get five dollars.
00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:42.640
And then you say, hey, if you uh you know clean your room, you can get five dollars.
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:47.200
Well, if they already have five dollars, why work for it when you're just gonna get it for free anyways?
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:59.519
And this can happen in all sorts of ways uh with with the availability of something being freely available, and then all of a sudden that token economy not working very well.
00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:00.400
Mm-hmm.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:07.759
Yeah, I I I told you earlier there was a girl in that I worked with, and we were we had this fabulous token economy running.
00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:11.440
She was like, earn these tokens to get a little piece of candy at the end.
00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:18.000
Um, well, she could select from a whole thing, but one of her favorite reinforcers to select at the end was just like this little piece of candy.
00:32:18.160 --> 00:32:38.000
And um, and then suddenly one day her behaviors were increasing, the token board wasn't working, and we found out that when her grandma picked her up, like a like the week before, she had realized that this granddaughter really liked these little candies, and being a sweet grandmother that she was, went out and bought a giant bag of these candies, and she'd just been giving handfuls to this girl at home.
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:45.920
And so, of course, like there goes all the reinforcement to or motivation for our token economy because she was like, I don't need to do XYZ.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:48.559
I can get candies for my grandmother at home.
00:32:48.880 --> 00:32:51.359
Yeah, that's a great story.
00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:51.759
Yeah.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:33:11.279
So that's also good is like um if you're doing these token economies and there's specific reinforcers the kids are working for, talking across your care team, like teachers, grandparents, friends, and trying to decrease the availability of those reinforcers so that the child can only access them through the store.
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:14.880
So one example is also Trader Joe's loves to give out stickers.
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:23.440
If you're if a stickers is something their kids are working towards, maybe getting 15 billion stickers every time they go to Trader Joe's is not going to be helpful.
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:24.079
Yeah.
00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:24.480
Yep.
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:25.839
No hate on Trader Joe's.
00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:26.559
We love your stickers.
00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:28.240
Please keep giving them to us.
00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:29.119
Yes.
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:30.000
All right.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:34.799
So then the next decision we want to talk about is deciding when to cash them in.
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:41.759
So this is kind of a discussion point, is that this can be something where you cash in the tokens at the end of the day.
00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:51.519
This is maybe for younger kids or you know, um kids that have difficulty waiting, or maybe they're new to token boards and they need to see that reinforcement earlier.
00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:53.599
Um, you can also do a weekly store.
00:33:53.759 --> 00:34:00.319
So some kids who can wait a little bit longer, maybe they're a little bit older, can wait until the end of the week to cash it in.
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:04.720
Or maybe you do this like every Sunday as a family, you cash in your points.
00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:09.760
Um, but this is something that you want to discuss early on and then make a make that a thing.
00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:10.639
Yeah.
00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:14.159
This can be a wholesome activity.
00:34:14.719 --> 00:34:21.440
You have behavior that you are saying very explicitly, these are things we want more of.
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:26.079
And you are earning this token with your behavior.
00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:32.400
And the exchange almost becomes the ceremony of celebration.
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:40.159
You did great, you did great, and now pick this, you know, from this menu and just celebrating that.
00:34:40.239 --> 00:34:51.760
And that's the great thing about token economies is the children earned it through their behavior, and uh, this token economy becomes very powerful and can be used in all sorts of ways.
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:56.800
So if you follow these four rules, then you're off and running.
00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:08.320
And I guess I would say the two big things to remember here beyond these four, is always deliver that token immediately.
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.599
You know, don't wait five minutes or an hour.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:20.960
Just like any reward, you have to deliver that immediately because that's forming the connection of behavior, reward.
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:23.119
That happens more likely in the future.
00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:42.559
And then the other thing I would point on is having the parent always have some specific praise that they're adding with the token, because now what you're doing is you're pairing, you're number one, you're teaching the child that what am I getting this token for?
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:54.480
Even though it might seem obvious, you further saying that with your words is helping solidify what the child did in them understanding what they did.
00:35:54.719 --> 00:36:06.559
And it's also helping you become when you when you pair that token and you give that praise, you are becoming positive, you're becoming even more positive, your praise is becoming more positive.
00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:12.559
Okay, let's take a moment and talk about parents.
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:14.159
I see this with influencers.
00:36:14.239 --> 00:36:24.480
I just saw this this morning as I was scrolling through my Insta, and this influencer was saying, Oh, sticker charts don't work, try blah, blah, blah.
00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:40.960
And I was like, oh, that just bugs me when people beat up on sticker charts because what they're really saying is behavior principles and token economies don't work, but sticker charts are not synonymous with a token economy.
00:36:41.440 --> 00:36:45.679
And here's a very simple reason why these don't work.
00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:48.960
And this goes back to the science that you and I were just explaining.
00:36:49.119 --> 00:37:02.159
If there's free access for something, then your token is not going to be robust enough to drive behavior forward because they're already getting whatever that free thing is.
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:08.559
I mean, this is a classic killer to token economies.
00:37:08.960 --> 00:37:21.679
If you get an afternoon school snack and that becomes a thing that the child is working for, but yet, you know, before the child came over, uh became home, maybe they went to their friend's house and already got a snack.
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:28.079
So that diminishes this, and they're not likely going to work for this thing that they just got for free.
00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:28.880
Mm-hmm.
00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:30.559
Yeah, that's a very good point.
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:33.760
The other one is if you're too stingy with your tokens.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:40.960
So if you make it too difficult for the kids to get their tokens, um, there's something we call ratio strain.
00:37:41.039 --> 00:37:46.719
So this is when it's it's too hard for them to earn it, then they're going to, it's going to decrease the motivation.
00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:52.239
So if a kid, you know, I don't know, he they have to the the payoff is too steep.
00:37:52.320 --> 00:38:05.360
So there's like um, you know, a billion things that they have to do to get one token, or maybe there's the favorite thing that they want is cost a thousand tokens and they only have one, they only get one per week, they're not gonna, they're not gonna want to participate in this economy.
00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:06.239
I mean, same thing.
00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:10.400
I also wouldn't, you know, work 50 hours for five dollars.
00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:15.440
Like that's that's I'm not gonna, you're gonna see my work productivity go down.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:17.679
Exactly.
00:38:18.079 --> 00:38:28.159
I would also add, if that reward loses as luster, that's not going to help maintain this token economy.
00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:33.840
Let's say that you have uh the reward menu and you had the same thing on there.
00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:44.719
One of the things that I do is I like to 3D print, and you know I'll print off these little animals, and and they're cute when you give one of them, like this little dog, or maybe a little articulating dragon.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:47.519
And any one by themselves is fine.
00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:56.960
But if I had this little dog or this articulated dragon, and every time you get to earn the same articulating dragon, it's not gonna work.
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:01.440
It's gonna become boring, and the person will become satiated.
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:05.840
Again, we talked about, I don't know if we talked about satiation, but I've written about it.
00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:15.840
But the satiation is like you're at Thanksgiving, you've eaten one plate, you've eaten a second plate, you've eaten a third plate, you don't want a fourth plate.
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:17.280
It's the same thing with these rewards.
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:27.199
Yeah, and then that also goes with the kids, you want to use up these rewards, I mean these tokens, like pretty regularly, because what you can sometimes get is hoarders.
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:37.440
Um, my little brother was a hoarder uh with his items when he was a kid, but he would store these tokens and then they lose the motivation to keep working for them because they're rich.
00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:39.760
They got all the tokens that they could ever want.
00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:44.480
And so you want to come up with like a healthy token economy where savings are kept low.
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:48.960
And so this means that there's regular cash-ins and mandatory um spend downs.
00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:51.599
So this is where like you have to spend your tokens.
00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:58.639
I mean, we kind of have this with like PTO sometimes, like you can't roll over all your PTO, you have to roll over only a portion of it.
00:39:58.800 --> 00:40:01.519
Like there's ways for us to kind of keep our savings low.
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:07.519
And um, yes, you don't want kids to become hoarders, or otherwise motivation will decrease.
00:40:08.079 --> 00:40:08.880
Absolutely.
00:40:09.519 --> 00:40:27.360
If you are using the token economy and you start changing this into either nagging the kids, like, hey, if you don't do this, you're not gonna earn your token, or you start bribing the kids with a token, like if you do this, I'll give you a token.
00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:30.480
Those are ways to kill the system.
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:32.320
Just don't do it.
00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:33.519
Mm-hmm.
00:40:33.840 --> 00:40:34.079
Yeah.
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.840
And also the idea that they these token economies aren't a forever plan.
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:40.960
Like we don't want our kids to be earning tokens through college.
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:44.559
You're not gonna be shipping tokens to your, you know, college-age kids.
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:45.679
It's not appropriate.
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:46.239
It doesn't work.
00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:48.159
I mean, no, it's not it's not, it's just not appropriate.
00:40:48.239 --> 00:40:48.880
We're not doing it.
00:40:48.960 --> 00:41:06.000
So um, what you do want to do is have a plan about how to fade this out so that then those other reinforcements, those natural reinforcements that we talked about, like praise, you know, just general warmth from your parents, social praise, those are the things that kind of take the place of these tokens over time.
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:06.960
Yeah.
00:41:07.599 --> 00:41:15.519
There's a lot to do with tokens, and we have provided a solid beginning in this podcast.
00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:19.039
We've laid out really important components to it.
00:41:19.199 --> 00:41:30.719
If this is something that you're interested in, visit the website or just type in token economy into your favorite LLM or just go to Google and search it.
00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:38.400
There's a lot of information out there on token economies, and it's something that I would encourage you all to use.
00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:49.840
Now, with that being said, I would like to point out that this is not a substitute for if you're dealing with some real clinical issues.
00:41:50.159 --> 00:42:24.719
If you have a behavior that's a safety risk, in other words, if you're in that red zone and there's some really intense behavior or something that's happening persistently and it's not changing, or we've talked about feeding, and you have a child who's having some serious feeding issues, or maybe they have some severe anxiety, whatever those issues are, you should think about contacting a pediatrician, or uh maybe contacting a board certified behavior analyst or someone who understands these principles.
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:33.199
You know, uh tokens, they are used in serious situations, but there's all of these other things going on.
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:49.920
So if you're just starting off learning to use these tokens, maybe uh don't think that that's gonna fix these really severe issues, and you should separate them from the token use if it's something that's really severe and really intense.
00:42:50.719 --> 00:42:52.000
That's a very good point.
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:54.880
Yeah, because we ask for help when you need it.
00:42:55.039 --> 00:43:01.119
And those are situations where definitely like asking for help, getting outside resources is definitely ideal.
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:09.119
Um, the other point to not use a sticker chart is um there's a thing in behavior analysis, we always say, is it a can't do problem or a won't do problem?
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:15.840
And if this is a it you don't want to use sticker charts for things where the child cannot physically do the action.
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:21.440
Like if I'm teaching my daughter to swim, I'm not going to throw into the deep den and try to give her a token when she gets to the edge.
00:43:21.519 --> 00:43:22.880
Like she can't literally swim.
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:25.679
So it's like this is not a motivational issue at that point.
00:43:25.840 --> 00:43:26.880
Like she's gonna drown.
00:43:27.119 --> 00:43:37.679
Um but if it's a won't do where you know your child is capable of performing these behaviors and they're just not doing it, this is where in token economy using that motivation reinforcement will be helpful.
00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:42.480
But so you always keep in mind when you're looking at these behaviors, is it a can't do or won't do?
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:43.519
Yeah.
00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:49.199
Let me give anyone who is willing to participate a homework assignment.
00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:56.480
If you think this is something you'd like to use or learn more about, do this for your homework.
00:43:56.800 --> 00:44:00.480
Pick one growth behavior for your child, just one.
00:44:00.960 --> 00:44:05.760
Pick one kind of token and one reward that your child likes.
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:07.199
Run it for a week.
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:08.639
See what happens.
00:44:08.800 --> 00:44:25.519
You know, hand over that token and use that praise when the behavior happens and uh let them know that as they get so many of these, they get a reward so that you can experience just the most basic use of this token economy and see how it works.
00:44:26.639 --> 00:44:32.079
Yeah, and if your last chart died and it's you died on the fridge, it's somewhere in your back of your pantry.
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:43.119
Go find it, figure out which of the six mistakes that we talked about was the culprit and try to fix that mistake because maybe your token economy wasn't dead, maybe you don't need a whole new one, maybe you just need a small repair.
00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:45.119
Very good.
00:44:45.519 --> 00:44:47.119
Uh very good wisdom there.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.400
Well, that brings us to the end of our show.
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:54.960
Thank you all for joining us.
00:44:55.199 --> 00:44:58.719
Thank you all for helping us build better humans.
00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:01.280
We'll see you next week.
00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:07.120
Welcome back to the Starborn Parenting Podcast.
00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:08.240
I'm Rick Abina.
00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:10.480
And I'm Madeline Jurgensen.
00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.160
Madeline, I have a question for you.
00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:24.559
Have you ever used a token economy either at home or in your time when you were working as a behavior analyst?
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:26.640
So many times.
00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:28.000
So, so many times.
00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:29.519
I can't even count that.
00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:30.480
Yeah.
00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:31.839
What about you?
00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:47.359
My very first job when I became a behavior analyst, I had to learn how to use a token economy for an entire uh at this facility that I was at, we had adults and we had children.
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:53.039
And I had to give it, I had to teach this for the entire group, which was probably kids.
00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:59.280
We probably had 30, 35 kids, and adults, there were probably another 30 or 35.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.719
So this massive group, it was something else.
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:10.239
And I have to tell you, these token economies are incredible, incredibly powerful.
00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:15.200
And I feel it's something that parents should know about.
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:16.319
Oh yeah.
00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:20.239
And you can cater them to children's age, developmental level.
00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:24.319
Um, they can, yeah, they're super, super, super useful.
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:32.959
The thing about token economies, we'll talk about them in much detail, but there's really four things that you gotta know.
00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.200
Number one, what is it?
00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:37.680
And here's a spoiler alert.
00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:45.040
If you understand how to use money and the principles behind it, you can get uh understand what a token economy is.
00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:48.159
Is it a bribe or is it a reward?
00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:53.359
That's something else that we need to talk about when we discuss token economies.
00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:54.959
How do you build it?
00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:02.480
It's pretty simple when you understand what the principles are and what the technique is behind it.
00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:18.080
You do have to know the principles of it, but it's if you're gonna do these things like anything else with behavior science, and people are doing these things, they just might not recognize what they're doing as part of behavior science, but how do you get good at it?
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:19.680
How do you have good timing?
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.800
And then what are mistakes that would make this system not as effective as it could be?
00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:33.840
So those are the things that we're gonna talk about today, and I'll start off by explaining what is a token economy in very simple terms.
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.159
You know, token economy is some kind of symbol.
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:41.680
That symbol could be whatever you think it could be.
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:53.680
It could be a poker chip, that symbol could be a sticker, which again, yeah, many people think sticker charts, they automatically think it's a token economy, but we'll talk about that later.
00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:59.360
But the a physical sticker could be a star on the wall, a tally mark.
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:20.960
If it's something digital, you could whatever that digital thing is, it should be consistent and it should represent you'd be using this with the behavior that you want, and the child or whoever is using this is going to turn in that token to something later.
00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:22.479
Let me ask you this.
00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:30.080
When you use the token economy, do you remember what the actual tokens were when you were using those systems?
00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:32.479
Some sometimes, yes.
00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:35.919
I mean, one I'll tell a store later was like a kind of a mint.
00:03:36.319 --> 00:03:38.080
I've used chips.
00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:44.960
I've used little pieces of paper, uh, just because that's what we had on hand at the moment.
00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:51.520
Uh yeah, it's been we've used little the most fancy one was like uh what was it called?
00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:56.560
Mario, like it was little Mario stickers, kind of these little like personalized chips we made.
00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:57.919
Yeah, Mario and Luigi.
00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:03.680
That's probably the most fancy we got, but sometimes they're just super simple marks on a page, check marks.
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:04.719
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:19.360
We used points, and we had these sheets of paper, and each what what was different about the the point system is we're talking right now token economy 101.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:22.079
Token, this happens for this thing.
00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:32.000
But what we did is we're a little bit more advanced, is we would give points, so this behavior could be a thousand points, or this behavior could be two thousand points.
00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:36.319
And that was a little bit more elaborate, but nevertheless, it's the same thing.
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:43.040
If you're writing a thousand points, that means nothing if you think about what that is.
00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.160
But this is the second part of the token economy.
00:04:46.319 --> 00:05:00.319
The real value is you are exchanging those points, those pieces of paper, uh, or if if it's a mint, you know, that that could be something in and of itself that has value.
00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:07.199
These things are going to be earned and you are uh getting value.
00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:12.079
Really, the cleanest analogy is a dollar bill or any of the money that we use.
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:22.720
If you went to another country or if someone well, let's just say someone gave you monopoly money, you know that that monopoly money outside of playing the game of monopoly has zero value.
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:24.800
Like you can't do anything with it.
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:34.800
Sure, maybe you're a child and you can pretend that it's something in a play situation, but it it doesn't have any value because there's nothing that backs it up.
00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:43.439
But with money, and when we get paychecks and when people get well, however they're paid, that has real value in its exchange.
00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:50.240
And essentially, those are the components that make up a token economy.
00:05:50.879 --> 00:05:59.920
Yeah, and you you touched on this with money because I these token economies isn't just something clinical that we kind of like stays in the clinical world, but we experience these all the time.
00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.680
As you point out, rightly so, money is a big token economy.
00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:06.240
Um, other ones are loyalty punch cards.
00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:12.959
If you know you you eat 10 pizzas, you get a you have the tenth one free or the 11th one free, as my dad always likes to go to.
00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:14.399
Hey, don't laugh at that.
00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:20.079
I you might you I'm sure you maybe you do remember this, but back in the day with Subway, I used to love Subway.
00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:20.399
Oh, yeah.
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:23.360
You would get these little cards and they would give you a sticker.
00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:24.399
Do you remember this?
00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:26.240
Or maybe that was just I do, I do.
00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:29.519
I wasn't a huge Subway fan, but I do know about this, yes.
00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:31.519
I loved it.
00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:42.319
I would love those, and and I would I became loyal to Subway because if I ate X amount of things, I would turn my car in, I'd get a free sub.
00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:46.800
I mean, my behavior is being controlled by the token economy.
00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.600
So that uh you know that punch card really resonates with me personally.
00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.639
Yeah, there's a there's a pizza place in Wisconsin.
00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:58.560
My dad's gonna kill me for not being able to say the name because I can't shout him out right now.
00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:02.800
But it's they have like magnet pieces that are like slices of pizza.
00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:06.240
So when you build, you get a magnet piece and you can build a whole pizza.
00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:09.600
And when you build the whole pizza, you bring it in and you get a whole pizza.
00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:17.680
So that was like when we yeah, when we visited our family in Wisconsin, it was like my dad had to go to the pizza place because we had to continue building our pizza.
00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:20.720
Oh, I love that.
00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:22.480
But yeah, so those are the things.
00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:23.360
Yeah.
00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:24.399
They work.
00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.800
And uh frequent flyer miles.
00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.839
I love frequent flyer miles.
00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.759
And again, that's a token economy.
00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:39.519
There's so many, when you think about these behavioral principles that we're talking about, they're throughout our society.
00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:45.839
It's just that, you know, as we're talking about these things and we're saying, hey, if you're a parent, this is how you could use it.
00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:52.319
A lot of people just don't recognize what are the behavioral principles behind these things that are always running.
00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:56.000
And uh, yeah, it's those are really good examples that you gave.
00:07:56.399 --> 00:08:00.720
And now that I think about it, Rick, you're actually pretty you're all about the loyalty programs.
00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:02.160
I know a couple loyalty programs.
00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:03.360
You're you're real loyal.
00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:06.319
I am absolutely loyal.
00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:10.959
And because you know me, you know how these people can reel me in.
00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:11.920
Oh, I know.
00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:24.560
When we go places for conferences, um, you know, I we have to be very picky about where we go, what locations we can stay at, because then otherwise Rick and I will be like 45 minutes apart from each other because he has to go to his loyalty hotel.
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:26.319
It has to be a Marriott.
00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:30.319
I am brand loyal to Marriott, and I will admit that publicly.
00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:37.200
Uh every year I I stay and I travel so much I become this, I don't even know what it's called, like an elite, whatever.
00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:45.039
So they give me a fancy name, they give you all these perks, but yeah, I am controlled by that, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:49.679
Yeah, and the behavioral magic about these whole token economies is the timing.
00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:53.919
So like tokens, they have to be marked by the second that it happens.
00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:57.840
So like the second you you book your miles, book your hotel, you get those.
00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:04.080
The second you, you know, do something that's on your sticker chart or whatever, then you get that sticker immediately.
00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:14.159
It's the timing so that you get the token immediately after the behavior happens, so that you can really draw that association between get the behavior itself and the token.
00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:16.720
That's such a good point.
00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:20.159
This is where the skill comes in.
00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:28.480
And we can talk about that now and later, but if that timing doesn't work, then your token economy is not going to work.
00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:32.480
And as we we talk about building the token economy, you have to have the timing.
00:09:32.559 --> 00:09:34.159
So that's a that's a fabulous point.
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:39.120
Now, I'd like to point out that this is established science.
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:40.960
It's deep science.
00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:51.759
I remember reading a book when I was a grad student, and this was a book that talked about token economies, and like they were built back in the 60s.
00:09:52.000 --> 00:10:04.879
And you know, some 60 years later, people still across classrooms, homes, clinics, businesses, everyone's using these token economies.
00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:10.240
And uh some of this went back to like literally the 30s.
00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:17.279
There were these researchers that gave these chimpanzees these uh they were like poker chips.
00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:26.879
And these poker chips could be dropped into this like vending machine contraptions, and these chimpanzees would then get grapes.
00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:40.399
And the chimps, what was amazing about this, this discovery back in the 30s, is the chimps would work just as hard for these poker chips than they would for the real food.
00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:49.360
And when you start thinking about that, like whoa, that really shows you the power of the behavioral principles that are at play.
00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:57.679
Because a poker chip by itself, like if you just went to your dog and started flashing a poker chip around your dog, your dog's just gonna look at you funny.
00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:01.679
And maybe it'll lick the poker chip or lick your hand because it likes you.
00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:03.759
But it doesn't have any value.
00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:15.440
But when these things become paired, as in this study that they showed, which was paired with these grapes, what these chimps loved, then it became it had worth.
00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:21.360
And, you know, they followed this up with other uh different kinds of tokens.
00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:27.200
And through time, it was just discovered that token economies work on these behavioral principles.
00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:32.799
And some of the discoveries were when you do this, you're making a promise.
00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:40.559
And if someone gives you, if you get a token and you don't get to cash it in, that creates all sorts of trouble.
00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:49.120
And they found that out in this research that these animals would get super upset when they didn't, and it would be like us.
00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:53.519
Uh, you work all week and all of a sudden your employer doesn't give you your paycheck.
00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:59.440
You're not gonna take very kindly to that, and that's what we see in this early research.
00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:04.879
So the the principle behind tokens, as I said, they're established science.
00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:05.759
Mm-hmm.
00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:11.200
I I love any any chimpanzee or monkey behavioral analysis research.
00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:12.960
They're so fascinating.
00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:14.159
Yeah.
00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:19.200
So one of the things we want to talk about too is like the difference between bribe and reward.
00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:22.240
So these are questions that we get asked by a lot from parents.
00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:25.200
It's like, you know, isn't this just bribery?
00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:26.320
And it's not.
00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:29.200
And it, but you know, you can be if you get it backwards.
00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:32.399
So the idea is that rewards come after the behavior you want.
00:12:32.559 --> 00:12:37.200
So if you, you know, say you started homework on your own, here's a token.
00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:38.559
Great, great use.
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:55.360
But if the kid is throwing a tantrum and you start saying, you know, if if you please stop, please stop throwing a tantrum or screaming and I'll give you a treat, or I'll give you a token, that becomes more of a bribe because isn't you're giving the token conversation during the middle of the tantrum.
00:12:55.440 --> 00:13:04.159
So then the kid learns that if they start screaming, they're they're gonna get a treat because you're gonna give the treat in an attempt to stop the screaming.
00:13:04.399 --> 00:13:13.360
So you never you never want to talk about tokens or try to refrain from talking about tokens when your kid is doing things that you don't want them to do because you're just gonna increase that behavior.
00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:18.000
So instead, you want to save all that token talk for times when they're doing something right.
00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:27.279
Like, you know, like I said, the kid's doing their homework where the kid says something nice to his sister, and you say, Great job saying something nice, you know, being nice to your sister, you know, saying thank you.
00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:28.559
Here's your token.
00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:29.759
Yeah.
00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:38.720
Boy, you said a couple things there that are just so important that if you're using tokens, you must focus in on that wisdom that you just shared.
00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:44.799
And reinforcing what you said, we've talked a lot about rewards.
00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:49.600
It is a fundamental principle of behavior.
00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:54.399
Behavior that's rewarded is gonna happen more often in the future.
00:13:54.960 --> 00:14:01.919
And that fundamental premise of behavior science drives so it's consequences.
00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:05.360
This is one of the key findings in our field.
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:15.360
And it's very understandable for a parent who's just learning about behavior science to say, whoa, wait a minute, I don't want to be bribing my kid.
00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:23.759
Bribes are not a good parenting technique, and understanding the difference, as you pointed out, is really important.
00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:28.240
And yes, we're not advocating that parents bribe their kids.
00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:30.559
That's not a good way to raise kids.
00:14:31.120 --> 00:15:02.720
I mean, bribery in general doesn't have any clinical evidence to it, whereas rewards has lots of clinical evidence to it, and using these tokens is a way to help show the person that like you yes, you can use praise as we'll talk about, but this token is something that they have and they can see it and they can turn it in later, and that's really an important point, and I wanted to emphasize what you just said, and just note how important that is.
00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:11.200
Second thing I would also uh like to echo is when you talked about you're in a crisis situation.
00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:16.159
You don't want to be using tokens at that point.
00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:17.840
And you know what else you don't want to do?
00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:25.120
And I I can tell you I've seen this happen with tokens in staff, and maybe you've seen something like this.
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:35.440
The staff, maybe they're not very well behaviorally trained, so you teach them in a clinical situation how to use these tokens, and it's powerful.
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:40.799
Children will work very hard for tokens, and you know what the staff do when the kids are being bad?
00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:44.559
Or what again, this is what they would say, the kids misbehaving.
00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:49.120
I'm gonna take that token away from you if you don't stop doing X.
00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:51.360
No.
00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:54.080
Terrible thing to do.
00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:54.960
Mm-hmm.
00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:55.600
Yeah.
00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:58.240
My husband almost I mentioned this in the other episode.
00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:05.600
My husband almost did that with our charts for my daughter was going to the when we were teaching her how to go to the bathroom, and he was he was like, Well, we can just take it away.
00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:08.000
Like, no, no, no, no, don't do that, don't say that.
00:16:08.159 --> 00:16:10.559
Like, really didn't side conversation, sidebar.
00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:11.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:16.000
It's uh sometimes you make these mistakes in the heat of the moment.
00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:19.039
I know I have like no one's perfect.
00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:21.519
You can only do the best that you can do.
00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:33.840
And with your behavior science, if you understand what it is, and if you understand the rules, things happen where maybe you're it's a heated moment and you got hurt.
00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.360
Maybe the kid accidentally was throwing a tantrum and you're really mad.
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:47.840
Like things can happen in the heat of the moment, but understanding and giving yourself grace that if you do make a mistake, that it's okay, just don't do it again.
00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:58.320
Uh and you know, with with these tokens, beyond, you know, you you're talking about some issues of well, should parents would they want to use tokens?
00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:05.519
Another issue that comes up is if you use tokens, is this something that's gonna kill their motivation?
00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:08.960
And I won't go into the research.
00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:12.480
We have so much research behind token economies.
00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:23.440
There are some people out there, and uh let's just let's just call this out right now so that when parents start reading more about behavior science, they understand that there's people like this out there.
00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:32.000
There are people that don't like behavior science, and there are people that will say, oh, well, in this study over here, it showed that rewards don't work.
00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:36.400
And when you start looking at these people, they have a very clear agenda.
00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:56.960
They're they're writing books, maybe they're supporting some other approach, and they are going to denigrate people that are already doing successful things, and you get this that uh they'll say, oh, well, here's the here's a research study that shows that token economies will kill motivation.
00:17:57.200 --> 00:18:05.920
If you look at those studies, there are reasons why those are flawed and are coming up and you have misinterpretations.
00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:15.839
We see that when children earn tokens, like maybe they're doing math, their interest in doing math on their own is held up.
00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:19.920
It doesn't collapse even when you start taking these tokens away.
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:35.920
So this idea that you're using tokens and it's somehow going to subvert someone's motivation, it just doesn't hold up to the information that's already out there.
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:42.720
Yeah, you made a really good point about that, you know, they don't lose their interest just because you have or giving the tokens.
00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:55.440
And it made me think about like it I also really like token economies, especially for parents, because it helps parents also cue in to their child's behaviors and look for things that they want to see increase.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:03.920
And so, you know, with the token, the kids also get praise, attention from the parents, and that's honestly what most kids really like.
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:09.039
Like the most kids just really like when their parents are proud of them, happy for them, excited for them.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:14.319
Um token economy is almost like a special way to create additional bonds with parents and kids.
00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:15.839
Yes.
00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:26.240
Imagine you have a child and you give them a token and you say, You did such a great job cleaning up after dinner.
00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:37.440
And you're pairing that that that warm phrase, the smile, the genuine intent you're putting in that, and the child has this token, they receive the token.
00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:45.039
Behavior science is about using these to help form these strong relationships between parents and their children.
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:57.359
And that absolutely happens, and at some point, those tokens will be faded, and yet you being warm and you giving the praise, that's still going to be able to maintain their behavior.
00:19:57.440 --> 00:19:58.799
So that's a really good point.
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.119
All right, so let's talk about how we actually build these.
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:08.960
What are kind of like the four decisions that we want to keep in mind when we're building one of these token economies?
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:09.920
Yeah.
00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:18.240
Let me start off by recommending if you're new to token economy, this is the first time you're using it, don't pick a hundred behaviors.
00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:21.519
Start off with three or maybe four.
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:31.359
If you pick a few target behaviors, then that's going to allow you to do many things at once.
00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:39.519
It's going to help you work on your delivery, as we've already mentioned a few times.
00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:46.559
When you provide a token, you need to do that token immediately after the behavior that has happened.
00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:51.920
And if you if you're trying to remember, okay, wait a minute, does this behavior earn a token or doesn't this behavior earn a token?
00:20:52.160 --> 00:21:00.000
Juggling all of this other information while you're still trying to be good at using these token economies makes it challenging.
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:07.680
So the very first thing that I would say is just pick one, two, three.
00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:09.279
Let's just stop there.
00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:11.200
Let's just start with one to three.
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:13.279
Make that your max.
00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:22.160
And if you go from there, you can't go wrong because you can then also know that you these are the behaviors my child's gonna earn.
00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:24.799
It'll be clear to them, it'll be clear to you.
00:21:25.279 --> 00:21:26.880
So I would start right there.
00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:27.599
Okay.
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:30.720
And making sure that those behaviors are observable, right?
00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:37.839
Like because it's like just being good or something, or like be good, don't be bad, would be a terrible token economy.
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:44.319
Like you want to be something really specific, like I want um backpack by the door packed by 7 a.m.
00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:48.240
Or I want say thank you after someone gives you something.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:57.200
You know, something like very specific so that then the child and it's clear to everybody what behaviors count as tokens and what behaviors do not count as tokens.
00:21:57.519 --> 00:21:57.680
Yeah.
00:21:57.839 --> 00:21:59.839
You and I have done research on tokens.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:06.319
Pinpoints, that also happens to be in that great book called Why Your Child Does That or Why Your Kid Does That.
00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:14.640
And pinpointing a behavior says very specifically, this is the behavior that I want to work with.
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:41.279
And as parents, if they are able to understand that this is the thing that is going to receive a token, that's going to make life much easier for them and the child because something that is very large and requires lots of behaviors or something that is unclear, that's going to be challenging.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:47.039
So being able to look at those specific behaviors are important.
00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:51.519
I would add a third component to when you're picking these behaviors.
00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:53.920
Yes, we want to have one to three max.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:56.559
Yes, we want them to be observable.
00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.039
But pick growth behaviors.
00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:02.240
Remember when we talked about that back in episode six?
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:07.599
You know, there's behaviors we want to grow, and then there's behaviors that we want to reduce.
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:19.680
Picking behaviors that we want to be in that category of growth behaviors is going to be helpful because you want them to go up, and guess what tokens do?
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:27.119
They are rewarding a behavior, and that behavior is going to occur more, there's going to be a higher likelihood that it occurs in the future.
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:29.680
So pick growth behaviors.
00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:34.960
Yeah, that's such a good, that's such a good point to mention, the growth behaviors.
00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:49.039
I remember sitting across from these parents that I was working with, and we had talked about starting a token economy, and I, for their homework that week, I was gonna, they had to make a list of behaviors that they wanted the kid, you know, the behaviors for the token, token economy.
00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:54.319
And I thought as a new BCBI, I'd done a good job explaining what the task was when I came back.
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:58.640
They gave me this list, and it was just a laundry list of everything that kids shouldn't do.
00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:02.319
Like, don't hit your sister, don't come to the table late, like don't do this.
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:05.599
And I was like, and I was reading this, I was like, what is your kid supposed to do?
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:10.559
It reminded me of those, you know, the the posters you might see at uh beach boardwalks.
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:12.880
It's like, don't roller skate, don't walk, don't run, don't think.
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:15.039
And you're like, what are we supposed to do?
00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:30.160
And it's like, you know, you we we like to think that our kids can come up with these ourselves, but the fact that the parent had difficulty thinking of things that the child should do makes, you know, you can't, you you would imagine that the kid is also having a difficult time figuring out what they can do.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:31.279
Yes.
00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:33.039
That that's a solid point.
00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:40.079
So pick growth behaviors and don't try to stamp everything out, you know, these annoying behaviors.
00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:55.200
Being humans, especially kids trying to figure things out, uh, the positive relationship is gonna develop more as you're giving, providing these tokens for behaviors you want to grow.
00:24:55.440 --> 00:25:02.400
And you can, we're not saying give your kids free reign, let them just do whatever they want to do.
00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:12.640
If you're smart about things, you can actually target a growth behavior that would be incompatible with these things that you don't want them doing.
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:27.200
For example, let's say that you want to go to uh a restaurant and your kids love this whatever the maybe it's some burger joint, and they run up to the the counter.
00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:45.680
If you gave them a token for we're gonna calmly walk to the uh front of the line or stand in line or whatever it is calmly, you can reward that behavior, and by virtue of you rewarding that, then they're not gonna be running to the front.
00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:50.799
And that's a little clever use of behavioral engineering that you can do.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:53.200
Yeah, yeah, we do that all the time.
00:25:53.359 --> 00:26:13.119
My daughter, she was we actually just did that today because she was sitting, we had this like plastic box that keeps all like extra clothes in, and she was trying to sit on top of it but it's very flimsy, and so I was like, you know, don't sit on the box, and then I immediately was like, Boy, you can sit over here, and I you know, I pointed at her new cushiony chair thing that she well, not new, it's like a this like foam block.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:16.400
And she sat on that, she was very happy, and it's like, yeah.
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:26.319
I think it's like if you give your kid a lot of growth behaviors, they don't really have space or time to do a lot of the the behaviors you don't want to see because they're just doing a bunch of things you do want to see, which is good.
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:30.319
Um, but yeah, so the other one is like how to choose your tokens.
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:33.039
So now we talked about like picking your behaviors.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:37.680
Now, when you choose your tokens, you can do pretty much anything that's countable.
00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:45.920
So stickers, poker chips, marbles, as long as there aren't like younger kids around, um, marks on a page, notebooks, stickers.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:27:00.880
Um, there's one thing I do have to note with the stickers or any of these items is you want to make them almost as plain as possible, very simple things, because you don't want like, oh, I don't want this token, I want this one, I don't want this sticker, I want this sticker.
00:27:01.119 --> 00:27:04.000
You know, you don't want them to have to like pick a lot and make decisions about it.
00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:08.160
It's just the the token is just sort of getting them to the reinforcer that they want at the end.
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:11.200
So it's it sometimes the simpler ones are the better.
00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:14.000
Yeah, that's a that's a good point.
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:24.319
If the tokens are something that are going to create a problem either in the delivery of giving these tokens or wherever you're keeping these tokens, that can be a problem.
00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:42.319
So having something that's reliable, the token almost doesn't matter in the sense that whether it's a star, whether it's you writing something, you giving something physical, or if it's something digital, maybe you have an iPad and you touch a button and there's a star or there's whatever it is, that's all fine.
00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:46.559
It's the delivery and being able to exchange this for reward.
00:27:46.720 --> 00:27:48.720
That's that's the that's the magic here.
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:49.440
Mm-hmm.
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:50.559
And storing them.
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:54.319
You mentioned that briefly and what you just said is that like you want a place to put them.
00:27:54.559 --> 00:28:02.240
I am not just gonna give the kid a token and they're gonna run around the house and lose it, or like you want a place for them to store these tokens after you give them.
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:04.960
And play letting the kids place the tokens themselves.
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.640
That's something that we do a lot in precision teaching, is like kids make their own marks.
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:26.400
And so if you have like a board that you can place it on or a tablet that you're running the token economy in, having the kids actually select the tokens themselves, place them on the board, that really gives them ownership and shows them that cause and effects between the behavior that they did and the token that they're receiving.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:27.440
Yes.
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:35.599
I guess I'd also point out when you think about tokens and choosing them, you need to be age specific.
00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:51.039
And if you have a young child, maybe they are in love with Thomas a train, but if you're doing this with teenagers or younger kids, they might not really be turned on by Thomas a train or they might feel infantilized.
00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:57.519
So make sure that whatever you're choosing is something that is age appropriate.
00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.000
Yeah, really good point.
00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:11.279
Another point would be okay, we talked about pick one to three targets, how do you pick those, what are some important things, choosing your tokens, that's number two.
00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:15.200
The third thing would be having a reward menu and setting the prices.
00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:19.119
This is where you know your child better than anybody else.
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:29.920
You have to come up with a way, uh, a menu of different items that your child will want to work for, and they have to be graded.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:43.920
Let's say that you have uh maybe you you earn five tokens and there's this little plastic toy that's oh, okay, that's nice, and maybe that's worth five tokens.
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:58.160
But if you have maybe a slice of paper that says, you know, you've earned uh a trip to Dairy Queen, if you put a price on that for five tokens, then you're gonna be making a lot of trips out to Dairy Queen.
00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:08.079
You have bigger ticket items and smaller ticket items, and as children are working, you know, they're earning these tokens through their behavior.
00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:10.960
I guess you can call that work in the sense.
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:17.680
They are earning this through their behavior, and when they go to exchange this, you have to have the reward menu.
00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:30.799
So the reward menu have to be things that they want, and it has to be like a fair exchange of this is the amount of behaviors you worked on, and this is the reward that you are exchanging it for.
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:33.920
Do you think that's something you could bring the kids into?
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:34.880
The discussion?
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:37.440
Like depending on the age, you know.
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:44.160
I think that's some a good opportunity to get that social buy-in with the the kids is like, okay, what do you think is fair?
00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:47.119
What do you want in the store, in your token store?
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:55.920
Um, and then if the you see the kids like maybe not getting interested anymore, maybe refreshing the store, getting new items, new ideas, all good.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:58.000
Yeah, I love that idea.
00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:07.680
Everything we can do to help the children have ownership is gonna be positive and make this thing happen and make it run smoother.
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:17.680
I guess if I were going to have a caveat here, it would be that reward has to be earned.
00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:23.440
If if a reward is not earned, uh well, let me say it this way.
00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:28.319
If there are some things that are available for free, why would why would someone earn it?
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:29.759
Think about money.
00:31:29.920 --> 00:31:38.559
Uh if if you just give your child$5, and then on the other hand, you're like, hey, uh every Friday they get five dollars.
00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:42.640
And then you say, hey, if you uh you know clean your room, you can get five dollars.
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:47.200
Well, if they already have five dollars, why work for it when you're just gonna get it for free anyways?
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:59.519
And this can happen in all sorts of ways uh with with the availability of something being freely available, and then all of a sudden that token economy not working very well.
00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:00.400
Mm-hmm.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:07.759
Yeah, I I I told you earlier there was a girl in that I worked with, and we were we had this fabulous token economy running.
00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:11.440
She was like, earn these tokens to get a little piece of candy at the end.
00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:18.000
Um, well, she could select from a whole thing, but one of her favorite reinforcers to select at the end was just like this little piece of candy.
00:32:18.160 --> 00:32:38.000
And um, and then suddenly one day her behaviors were increasing, the token board wasn't working, and we found out that when her grandma picked her up, like a like the week before, she had realized that this granddaughter really liked these little candies, and being a sweet grandmother that she was, went out and bought a giant bag of these candies, and she'd just been giving handfuls to this girl at home.
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:45.920
And so, of course, like there goes all the reinforcement to or motivation for our token economy because she was like, I don't need to do XYZ.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:48.559
I can get candies for my grandmother at home.
00:32:48.880 --> 00:32:51.359
Yeah, that's a great story.
00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:51.759
Yeah.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:33:11.279
So that's also good is like um if you're doing these token economies and there's specific reinforcers the kids are working for, talking across your care team, like teachers, grandparents, friends, and trying to decrease the availability of those reinforcers so that the child can only access them through the store.
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:14.880
So one example is also Trader Joe's loves to give out stickers.
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:23.440
If you're if a stickers is something their kids are working towards, maybe getting 15 billion stickers every time they go to Trader Joe's is not going to be helpful.
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:24.079
Yeah.
00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:24.480
Yep.
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:25.839
No hate on Trader Joe's.
00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:26.559
We love your stickers.
00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:28.240
Please keep giving them to us.
00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:29.119
Yes.
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:30.000
All right.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:34.799
So then the next decision we want to talk about is deciding when to cash them in.
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:41.759
So this is kind of a discussion point, is that this can be something where you cash in the tokens at the end of the day.
00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:51.519
This is maybe for younger kids or you know, um kids that have difficulty waiting, or maybe they're new to token boards and they need to see that reinforcement earlier.
00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:53.599
Um, you can also do a weekly store.
00:33:53.759 --> 00:34:00.319
So some kids who can wait a little bit longer, maybe they're a little bit older, can wait until the end of the week to cash it in.
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:04.720
Or maybe you do this like every Sunday as a family, you cash in your points.
00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:09.760
Um, but this is something that you want to discuss early on and then make a make that a thing.
00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:10.639
Yeah.
00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:14.159
This can be a wholesome activity.
00:34:14.719 --> 00:34:21.440
You have behavior that you are saying very explicitly, these are things we want more of.
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:26.079
And you are earning this token with your behavior.
00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:32.400
And the exchange almost becomes the ceremony of celebration.
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:40.159
You did great, you did great, and now pick this, you know, from this menu and just celebrating that.
00:34:40.239 --> 00:34:51.760
And that's the great thing about token economies is the children earned it through their behavior, and uh, this token economy becomes very powerful and can be used in all sorts of ways.
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:56.800
So if you follow these four rules, then you're off and running.
00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:08.320
And I guess I would say the two big things to remember here beyond these four, is always deliver that token immediately.
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.599
You know, don't wait five minutes or an hour.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:20.960
Just like any reward, you have to deliver that immediately because that's forming the connection of behavior, reward.
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:23.119
That happens more likely in the future.
00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:42.559
And then the other thing I would point on is having the parent always have some specific praise that they're adding with the token, because now what you're doing is you're pairing, you're number one, you're teaching the child that what am I getting this token for?
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:54.480
Even though it might seem obvious, you further saying that with your words is helping solidify what the child did in them understanding what they did.
00:35:54.719 --> 00:36:06.559
And it's also helping you become when you when you pair that token and you give that praise, you are becoming positive, you're becoming even more positive, your praise is becoming more positive.
00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:12.559
Okay, let's take a moment and talk about parents.
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:14.159
I see this with influencers.
00:36:14.239 --> 00:36:24.480
I just saw this this morning as I was scrolling through my Insta, and this influencer was saying, Oh, sticker charts don't work, try blah, blah, blah.
00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:40.960
And I was like, oh, that just bugs me when people beat up on sticker charts because what they're really saying is behavior principles and token economies don't work, but sticker charts are not synonymous with a token economy.
00:36:41.440 --> 00:36:45.679
And here's a very simple reason why these don't work.
00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:48.960
And this goes back to the science that you and I were just explaining.
00:36:49.119 --> 00:37:02.159
If there's free access for something, then your token is not going to be robust enough to drive behavior forward because they're already getting whatever that free thing is.
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:08.559
I mean, this is a classic killer to token economies.
00:37:08.960 --> 00:37:21.679
If you get an afternoon school snack and that becomes a thing that the child is working for, but yet, you know, before the child came over, uh became home, maybe they went to their friend's house and already got a snack.
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:28.079
So that diminishes this, and they're not likely going to work for this thing that they just got for free.
00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:28.880
Mm-hmm.
00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:30.559
Yeah, that's a very good point.
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:33.760
The other one is if you're too stingy with your tokens.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:40.960
So if you make it too difficult for the kids to get their tokens, um, there's something we call ratio strain.
00:37:41.039 --> 00:37:46.719
So this is when it's it's too hard for them to earn it, then they're going to, it's going to decrease the motivation.
00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:52.239
So if a kid, you know, I don't know, he they have to the the payoff is too steep.
00:37:52.320 --> 00:38:05.360
So there's like um, you know, a billion things that they have to do to get one token, or maybe there's the favorite thing that they want is cost a thousand tokens and they only have one, they only get one per week, they're not gonna, they're not gonna want to participate in this economy.
00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:06.239
I mean, same thing.
00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:10.400
I also wouldn't, you know, work 50 hours for five dollars.
00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:15.440
Like that's that's I'm not gonna, you're gonna see my work productivity go down.
00:38:16.719 --> 00:38:17.679
Exactly.
00:38:18.079 --> 00:38:28.159
I would also add, if that reward loses as luster, that's not going to help maintain this token economy.
00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:33.840
Let's say that you have uh the reward menu and you had the same thing on there.
00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:44.719
One of the things that I do is I like to 3D print, and you know I'll print off these little animals, and and they're cute when you give one of them, like this little dog, or maybe a little articulating dragon.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:47.519
And any one by themselves is fine.
00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:56.960
But if I had this little dog or this articulated dragon, and every time you get to earn the same articulating dragon, it's not gonna work.
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:01.440
It's gonna become boring, and the person will become satiated.
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:05.840
Again, we talked about, I don't know if we talked about satiation, but I've written about it.
00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:15.840
But the satiation is like you're at Thanksgiving, you've eaten one plate, you've eaten a second plate, you've eaten a third plate, you don't want a fourth plate.
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:17.280
It's the same thing with these rewards.
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:27.199
Yeah, and then that also goes with the kids, you want to use up these rewards, I mean these tokens, like pretty regularly, because what you can sometimes get is hoarders.
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:37.440
Um, my little brother was a hoarder uh with his items when he was a kid, but he would store these tokens and then they lose the motivation to keep working for them because they're rich.
00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:39.760
They got all the tokens that they could ever want.
00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:44.480
And so you want to come up with like a healthy token economy where savings are kept low.
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:48.960
And so this means that there's regular cash-ins and mandatory um spend downs.
00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:51.599
So this is where like you have to spend your tokens.
00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:58.639
I mean, we kind of have this with like PTO sometimes, like you can't roll over all your PTO, you have to roll over only a portion of it.
00:39:58.800 --> 00:40:01.519
Like there's ways for us to kind of keep our savings low.
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:07.519
And um, yes, you don't want kids to become hoarders, or otherwise motivation will decrease.
00:40:08.079 --> 00:40:08.880
Absolutely.
00:40:09.519 --> 00:40:27.360
If you are using the token economy and you start changing this into either nagging the kids, like, hey, if you don't do this, you're not gonna earn your token, or you start bribing the kids with a token, like if you do this, I'll give you a token.
00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:30.480
Those are ways to kill the system.
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:32.320
Just don't do it.
00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:33.519
Mm-hmm.
00:40:33.840 --> 00:40:34.079
Yeah.
00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.840
And also the idea that they these token economies aren't a forever plan.
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:40.960
Like we don't want our kids to be earning tokens through college.
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:44.559
You're not gonna be shipping tokens to your, you know, college-age kids.
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:45.679
It's not appropriate.
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:46.239
It doesn't work.
00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:48.159
I mean, no, it's not it's not, it's just not appropriate.
00:40:48.239 --> 00:40:48.880
We're not doing it.
00:40:48.960 --> 00:41:06.000
So um, what you do want to do is have a plan about how to fade this out so that then those other reinforcements, those natural reinforcements that we talked about, like praise, you know, just general warmth from your parents, social praise, those are the things that kind of take the place of these tokens over time.
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:06.960
Yeah.
00:41:07.599 --> 00:41:15.519
There's a lot to do with tokens, and we have provided a solid beginning in this podcast.
00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:19.039
We've laid out really important components to it.
00:41:19.199 --> 00:41:30.719
If this is something that you're interested in, visit the website or just type in token economy into your favorite LLM or just go to Google and search it.
00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:38.400
There's a lot of information out there on token economies, and it's something that I would encourage you all to use.
00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:49.840
Now, with that being said, I would like to point out that this is not a substitute for if you're dealing with some real clinical issues.
00:41:50.159 --> 00:42:24.719
If you have a behavior that's a safety risk, in other words, if you're in that red zone and there's some really intense behavior or something that's happening persistently and it's not changing, or we've talked about feeding, and you have a child who's having some serious feeding issues, or maybe they have some severe anxiety, whatever those issues are, you should think about contacting a pediatrician, or uh maybe contacting a board certified behavior analyst or someone who understands these principles.
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:33.199
You know, uh tokens, they are used in serious situations, but there's all of these other things going on.
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:49.920
So if you're just starting off learning to use these tokens, maybe uh don't think that that's gonna fix these really severe issues, and you should separate them from the token use if it's something that's really severe and really intense.
00:42:50.719 --> 00:42:52.000
That's a very good point.
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:54.880
Yeah, because we ask for help when you need it.
00:42:55.039 --> 00:43:01.119
And those are situations where definitely like asking for help, getting outside resources is definitely ideal.
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:09.119
Um, the other point to not use a sticker chart is um there's a thing in behavior analysis, we always say, is it a can't do problem or a won't do problem?
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:15.840
And if this is a it you don't want to use sticker charts for things where the child cannot physically do the action.
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:21.440
Like if I'm teaching my daughter to swim, I'm not going to throw into the deep den and try to give her a token when she gets to the edge.
00:43:21.519 --> 00:43:22.880
Like she can't literally swim.
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:25.679
So it's like this is not a motivational issue at that point.
00:43:25.840 --> 00:43:26.880
Like she's gonna drown.
00:43:27.119 --> 00:43:37.679
Um but if it's a won't do where you know your child is capable of performing these behaviors and they're just not doing it, this is where in token economy using that motivation reinforcement will be helpful.
00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:42.480
But so you always keep in mind when you're looking at these behaviors, is it a can't do or won't do?
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:43.519
Yeah.
00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:49.199
Let me give anyone who is willing to participate a homework assignment.
00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:56.480
If you think this is something you'd like to use or learn more about, do this for your homework.
00:43:56.800 --> 00:44:00.480
Pick one growth behavior for your child, just one.
00:44:00.960 --> 00:44:05.760
Pick one kind of token and one reward that your child likes.
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:07.199
Run it for a week.
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:08.639
See what happens.
00:44:08.800 --> 00:44:25.519
You know, hand over that token and use that praise when the behavior happens and uh let them know that as they get so many of these, they get a reward so that you can experience just the most basic use of this token economy and see how it works.
00:44:26.639 --> 00:44:32.079
Yeah, and if your last chart died and it's you died on the fridge, it's somewhere in your back of your pantry.
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:43.119
Go find it, figure out which of the six mistakes that we talked about was the culprit and try to fix that mistake because maybe your token economy wasn't dead, maybe you don't need a whole new one, maybe you just need a small repair.
00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:45.119
Very good.
00:44:45.519 --> 00:44:47.119
Uh very good wisdom there.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.400
Well, that brings us to the end of our show.
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:54.960
Thank you all for joining us.
00:44:55.199 --> 00:44:58.719
Thank you all for helping us build better humans.
00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:01.280
We'll see you next week.
