A "Pinteresting" Life: Behavior Chart

J and I have really been struggling to find a consistent means of handling T when he becomes cranky, defiant, etc.  We have tried essentially everything in our arsenal with some limited success.  Enter Pinterest. I had suggested a behavior chart a while ago when I stumbled across an adorable Super Hero-themed behavior chart. J had originally vetoed the idea.  Then we found out that T has a behavior chart at home with his mom. Once we found that out, J was on board with doing a chart of our own for T at our house! While the one I found was originally designed for a classroom, it essentially met our needs for a behavior chart at home (with some minor DIY and tweaking involved, of course!). Here is my inspiration (How adorable, right?!):

T is obsessed with super heroes, so what better way to mark how well (or not so well) he has done that day?! So where to start?! I swung by my local Michael's (Don't worry - I paid cash with the recent card breach that occurred with this company!) and picked up some supplies:

1. Paper. Rather than use 7 colors, I used 6 (Sorry, Indigo - you've been voted off the island).

2. Ribbon. I needed some way to connect each individual piece of paper together. Closer inspection of the original picture revealed it was held together with 1.5-2 inch wide ribbon.

3. Stickers: My handwriting is cute and all, but I wanted some uniformity with all the different "levels."

My supplies that I had to purchase!

I spent several days drawing these little super heroes and cutting them out. I even drew a little T for the green sheet of paper, where he will start off each day. Here are some of the little super heroes I drew.

Then I laid out each piece of paper in the order I wanted to have them hanging (purple on top all the way down to red on the bottom). I cut out the individual sticker letters and laid them out in the general spacing pattern that I wanted to follow, choosing which hero I wanted on each level. I put Batman and Superman on the "Super T" paper (purple) since those are his 2 favorites. It let me play with the spacing of the letters and figure out which super heroes would work and be most visible on each color! Here is the Green Lantern on "Warning!":

Once I had each pice laid out like I wanted, I stuck the stickers down and used rubber cement to glue down the super heroes. Once everything had been stuck down and/or glued down, I wrote a Reward at the top of each page and a Punishment at the bottom of each page, giving T motivation to work hard to improve his behavior, but providing punishment should his behavior warrant it.  It also gives him a visual of how his behavior has been that day (and what he has lost by being ugly). This is how all the pages look once put together:

It's coming together so nicely! I was so excited! Then I laid out the 1.5" wide ribbon to see about how long I would need for my ribbon to be to connect all of them together on one piece.

I then flipped all the pages over, lined them up like I wanted and used hot glue to attach the ribbon to the back of the pages.

Once that was done (and I had let it cool and dry for a few minutes), I used a piece of skinnier ribbon to form a loop at the top. This way we can hang it up in an area that T can see frequently throughout the day. We also wanted to hang it low enough that he could (for the most part) move the clothespin up or down. Once I got the loop of ribbon situation where I wanted it, I doused it in hot glue.

We then hung it up in our downstairs hallway where T runs through frequently, giving it high visibility. This is our final product, and I couldn't be happier! I say it's "our" product as J did help...by hammering the nail into the wall!

Some rewards we discussed (and some of which we used): earning TV time, one additional TV show, earn a toy back (that he lost as punishment), an extra cookie/dessert item after dinner, come out of his room (he has to earn this by apologizing), extra bedtime story..

Some punishments we discussed: 5 minutes in time out, time alone in his room, lose a toy he is playing with, lose TV privileges for the day, go to bed early...

Hopefully this will help you design your own behavior chart! Thanks for stopping by!