Golden Thank Yous are also for parents to use at home as their family currency.
- Affirmation:
Kids crave the approval of their parents. Giving them Golden Thank Yous
for a job well done let's them understand your appreciation in a
quantifiable way.
- Recreation: Play games and sports with your
kids. Give them Golden Thank Yous for every point they score with a
bonus if they win the game. Watch them try even harder.
- Education:
Golden Thank Yous are covered with smart stuff, on the fronts and
on the backs. Using Golden Thank Yous shows your kids that you value
education.
Golden Thank Yous are a great family currency. Not surprisingly, they were created and designed by a father of four boys and two girls, originally for his family.
Do Golden Thank Yous help brothers and sisters get along better?
Yes
they do. Adults use US Dollars to get along better with each other.
Imagine how chaotic our relationships with other adults would be
without a currency for us to negotiate the exchange of goods and
services. Kids need a currency too.
Why not just use US Dollars as our family currency?
When
your kids become young adults, perhaps you will. In the meantime, Golden Thank
Yous allow parents to have more influence over their kids - as they
should - since they control the money supply. Also, if kids lose Golden
Thank Yous in their room, it's not as big a deal as if they lose real
money.
Is it okay to pay the neighbor kids Golden Thank Yous too?
Absolutely,
but make sure their parents are okay with it first. Use Golden Thank
Yous for your neighbor's kids just as you would for your own child.
When the kids next door see your child's Golden Thank Yous, they'll
want some too.
What can my kids buy with their Golden Thank Yous?
Whatever
you want to sell them. Auctions are fun. For example, if one of your
kids doesn't put a toy away and you step on it in the middle of the
night, auction it off to the highest bidder in the morning. Kids will
learn to put their toys away after that. You can also auction off toys that you buy at the dollar store or whatever else your kids get excited about. Kids are also excited just to collect Golden Thank Yous.
What ages are Golden Thank Yous for?
Ages 2 to 12 and up. At Professor Bray's
house, kids ages 2 to 10 are aggressively collecting Golden Thank Yous.
Consequently, Golden Thank Yous are valuable to everyone, including
Professor Bray who is 45, since the kids will do almost anything for
them. For example, at one point Professor Bray's 8 year old
daughter even said she'd be willing to sell her IPad Mini for 1,000
Golden Thank Yous! In the same way adults are willing to sell
almost anything for a price, kids seem to be willing to sell almost
anything or accomplish almost any task for enough Golden Thank Yous.
Even 2 year olds want to be rich!
How do I get my kids to think Golden Thank Yous are valuable?
As
long as you treat Golden Thank Yous as valuable, your kids will too. If
your kids have to work hard to earn Golden Thank Yous, they will
consider them valuable too.
In fact, Golden Thank Yous are
valuable to kids for exactly the same reason as US Dollars are valuable
to adults - because we have to work hard to earn them, and because we
can use them to trade for goods and services with other people.
Begin by only using the smaller bills. Don't introduce the
larger bills until absolutely necessary. You will get the most use out
of your Golden Thank Yous if you increase the money supply at a steady,
predictable pace. Just ask any Federal Reserve Chairman.
The WORST THING YOU CAN DO is to give your child a whole bunch of
Golden Thank Yous the first day for doing very little or nothing. This
shows you do not value the money, so why should they? To be fair, if
anyone could have a billion US Dollars for free whenver they wanted,
then US Dollars wouldn't be worth anything either.
As
you can imagine, using Golden Thank Yous as your family currency has
the potential to be a very instructive economics lesson for the kids and the adults!
What kinds of things should I pay my kids to do?
Kids have to do the chores their parents tell them to do anyway, but Golden Thank Yous can be a nice reward for a job well done. Also, you can reward your kids with Golden Thank Yous just for being a good person - to their siblings or younger kids, for example - when you see them going out of their way to be nice.
Golden Thank Yous also help make chores more like games. For example, if you need all the sticks picked up out of your yard, offer 1 Golden Thank You for every stick they pick up. If you have a pile of leaves that needs to be picked up, do a reverse auction where the kid who will do it for the least gets the job.
Achieving goals are more good reasons to pay out Golden Thank Yous. Getting straight A's, a perfect score on an exam, and making 15 shots in a row on your basketball hoop are all great goals for kids. If you play Monopoly, give out Golden Thank Yous based on which place each player comes in. Then give extra Golden Thank Yous to the kids who played with the best attitude.
Sports like soccer
and basketball are also a fun way to teach teamwork with Golden Thank
Yous. First, promise to pay everyone on the team exactly the same
amount for whatever the result of the game is so that everyone is
incentivized to work together for the benefit of the team. For example,
you might pay each kid on the team 1 Golden Thank You per point scored
by the team plus a bonus of 10 Golden Thank Yous if their team wins the
game. If younger kids are involved, make their goals worth more points.
Watch the older kids help the younger kids score so that the team gets
more points. This is most easily done when the parent is on one team
and all of the kids are on the other team so that all of the kids can
be successful together.
Finally, when your kids ask you how they can earn more Golden Thank Yous, ask them what they'd like to do to earn them. Kids often come up with great ideas of good things to do.
Have any more questions or suggestions? Send us an email at goldenthankyous@gmail.com.
