A small gamification victory with my daughter!

Whilst I spin through a really busy time, I wanted to share with you a minor gamification victory with my daughter.

Anyone who has read my blog in the past, will know that I have been trying to use gamification around my daughters behaviour for a few years now. Not all (any) attempts have been 100% successful. The most gut wrenching failure was the use of the reward chart! However, in March, I decided to try a slightly less rewards based system – the Behaviour Meter.

This was a simple chart that displayed numbers 0 to 10, with an arrow pointing to the value that best described my daughters behaviour at the time. Whenever I felt her behaviour changed, I moved the arrow – simple!

Anyway, fast forward to this weekend.

  • Daughter: “Daddy, how come I am on an 8 on my chart. I thought I had been naughtier than that”
  • Me:  “Well, generally you have been pretty well behaved”
  • Daughter “I can’t wait to get a 10 on there”
  • Me: “That’s great, but you know there is no prize for getting a 10”
  • Daughter: “I know that, but I really want to prove I can do it”

She wanted to behave, because she wanted to. There was no desire for a reward behind it, she wanted to do it for her – it was intrinsic!

Now, I call this a massive win for fast and relevant feedback vs extrinsic rewards.

The next step is to lay out a few guidelines that she can follow to get her behaviour up to a 10!

Download a behaviour meter!

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3 thoughts on “A small gamification victory with my daughter!”

  1. Before you lay out the guidelines for her, ask her what behaviors she thinks/feels she will need to accomplish to go from an 8 to a 9. She may already know a few.

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