A reward system that works for my toddler

Most parents have experienced the demanding child, the pestering one and most recently, the LCD screen addicted one in some form or the other. I am no exception. For our 4 year old, the LCD screen is not a choice but everything else is. And when in a group of like minded kids, the manners get tossed out the window too. So my wife and I were looking for a system that would allow us to encourage good behavior. And we found one that seems to work for us. Before we look into the solution, let us examine the problem at hand.The ProblemWe have a relatively young kid so parents of older kids and multiple kids know this much better than us. Our 4 year old was starting to learn all the wrong things in school. He was also starting to demand his way with things that he liked to do or want to eat. We tend to be fairly rigid parents when it comes to our kids habits. One candy a week, 30 minutes of parent supervised National Geographic a week, 20 minutes on a smartphone per week and so on. But he wanted more of it. And he was starting to throw tantrums for all the wrong reasons. We needed something to get him to behave without having to bribe him for it. A candy to solve a tantrum is not our way of solving such a problem. I had read books and blogs and websites but nothing seemed to work. But we were determined to get him to behave.A SolutionThe star system or the reward system in itself is nothing new whatsoever. It has existed for a long time. But like everything else, it has also adapted itself to the smartphone/tablet era and in a way that makes it easy to manage it. I personally use iRewardChart [iOS] [Android] and like it very much. I am sure there are other such apps for iOS and Android that are worth looking into. I am not here to talk as much about the app as the philosophy that seems to be working for us.Our PhilosophyMuch of this paragraph is how we (my wife and I) view this reward system based approach with kids. Feel free to disagree or have your own take on it. We believe in making our kid work for what he wants. It is not an instant fix but something he has to work towards- the easier ones come in a day or two. The more wanted ones come over time. And if he wants something badly, he knows he has to work towards it. It would be easy to dismiss this as another form of bribe. But not so. There is an incentive to not just act good for a short instant of time but behave through the day and over a period of few days really to get what he wants. And that builds the right kind of behavior we want to see in our child. Here are some ways it helps.1. As a gentle reminderThe system allows us to gently prod the child at times when things are getting out of hand. For example, every day my son cries for reasons other than an injury, he loses ALL his stars. And we make it a point to warn him as he is about to break into tears for random reasons usually stemming from tiredness that all his good work for the day is about to get lost. Sometimes it works and other times he cries anyway. When it works, it feels good as does he.A few months ago, the kids in his class were starting to use potty language. While it is strictly forbidden at home, he was starting to pick it up at school. And I wanted to put an end to it. It was simple. I added a reward category and made his work towards cleaning up the language. He was tempted to lie occasionally but his conscience got the better of him. And that was that.2. To aim higherThe beauty of the reward itself is how it tests the will power of the child. If you look at the rewards we offer him, the low hanging fruit is a candy. But what he really wants is his favorite petit four- the french macaron. And the rewards system has taught him to work for it. Often times, he will wait until he gets enough for a petit four (40 stars) and skip the 4 candies it would have netted him as instant gratification. And it helps him work towards bigger goals than settling for the easier shorter ones.3. To do moreMy son now makes it a point to read a book every night to earn the stars for it. He writes something in his notebook to get the stars due for it. He also tries to do some art (he does this anyway) every day. It all counts and he wants them all. With every passing week, new tasks are added and newer rewards are offered as his tastes change. And as we add more activities to his roster, he aspires to do them all.4. To step up to the occasionMy son is very shy of the limelight. He is an extrovert who thrives in the midst of people but hates performing in front of a crowd. And such events occur every few months at his school be it the Lunar New Year party or the Diwali party or Christmas party. In the past, he would excitedly prepare for the day by rehearsing his song and dance at school and at home. But when the day arrived and his group was about to do their bit, he would whine and cry. On the way back home, he would regret it and perform his bit for us at home. This frustrated us to no end. So last Diwali, I told him that he would earn a one time bounty of 100 stars if he made his way through his party smiling and happy. We ended up with his best performance to date. He got his stars and banked them.5. There are consequencesThe biggest gain for us is that our son finally knows that actions have consequences. Good actions like music practice and reading books and waking up on time have obvious good consequences- stars that result in eventual rewards. Bad actions like crying or whining means that stars are lost, sometimes a bunch of them in a day. It took a while for it to sink in but seems to be working atleast some of the time when he does or is about to do something unacceptable or better still, consider doing something good.The case againstNow anyone could argue against such an approach. It is still a bribe. It will build a feeling in him that everything needs to have a reward and so on. It maybe true. But I dont know. What I do know is that I have a system in place that seems to work well- we are well into the 4 month with this experiment and as a parent you know that it is eons in terms of the quickly changing world of kids. We do our stars every night on my phone. On days that there are tears, I make it a point to remind him that he lost it all because of an unwanted burst and that he should think about it when he feels the urge to cry the next day. And with the rewards, dont you already succumb to the pleas of a crying child or a whining child?. Wouldn't it be worth something if they atleast worked for their smartphone/tablet time or a candy instead of just crying or screaming for it?.What next?As I said earlier, I view the rewards mechanism as a way for my son to know about consequences of his actions. And if I can drill that idea in meaningfully, I would be thrilled. I hope that this continues for a while in some form or the other. There is, in my opinion, too much value in this system to be abandoned.