Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Motivational Items

We have found a new way to motivate our youngest son, Jonah. He has become enamored, enflamed and engulfed by an obsession for bakugan. They are toys! It’s a game! It’s a TV show!

Bakugan! Are! Life!

Duh.

Of course, what bakugan really are, is pretty clever marketing and product scheme. In the grand tradition of trading cards and Pokemon, they are never ending. You can never have enough bakugan toys and cards. You keep buying and collecting the little doo-dads and trading with your friends, until you or your parents run out of money. Or you have a giant fight with your friends because of unfair, disproportionate trading practices. It’s annoying and genius at the same time; genius, because the bakugan folks have to be making bank on this junk and annoying because you didn’t think of it first.

Anyway, the boy loves them.

Loves. Them.

Naturally, as parents we are using this to our advantage. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a few of them (they are actually quite expensive, in my opinion, given what you are buying, essentially a playing card and a plastic toy; about $7 apiece, totally outrageous) and have been doling them out to him, based on an arcane reward system that only I really understand.

Do all your homework for a week or so and turn it in? You can look at the unopened package of bakugan.

Put the clean dishes in the dishwasher away in the cupboards? You may hold an unopened package.

Change the oil in the Jetta? Get a bakugan.

Name all the U.S. states and their capitals? Whoops that wasn’t on the list, sorry, but now you know the capital of Kansas! Cool, huh?

Brush your teeth every night and morning? Maybe. Keep brushing, we’ll see after your next dentist appointment.

The best thing about bakugan, though? Cartoon Network airs the program at 7:30 every weekday morning. So Jonah gets up early and gets himself ready, so he can watch his show, unencumbered by parental pestering to “get out of bed, already!” It’s astonishing how motivated he is, really. And since I have the joy of getting the two smaller children up and out the door, I’ve been the unexpected recipient of this boon.

Reha: So, bakugan. Wow.

Me: I know! Crazy. Love the bakugan! W00t!

Reha: Bakugan have to be the best thing ever to come into your life, huh?

Me: Of course not. You are the best thing to ever land in my life.

Reha: Close second, though?

Me: Nipping at your heels, babe.

1. Sounds like a pretty sweet reward system to me. And they’re fat free!

   I used to get seven pennies for doing my chores, which I would then spend on candy which I am now hopelessly in love with (and have the cavities to prove it).

   I hope your kid loves Bakugan forever.

   Posted by Holden Helena  on  11/18/08  at  06:02 PM

2. Well, holy crap.  How is it that I have six children and have somehow never heard of this new phenomenon?

   Just remember: ‘bribery’ = a gift in exchange for bad behavior.  ‘Incentive’ = a gift in exchange for good behavior. 

   Bakugan sounds like a sweeter-than-pie basis for providing incentive (can’t bring myself to use that abomination of a non-word ‘incentivization’).

   Posted by Novembrance  on  11/21/08  at  02:36 PM

3. Yeah - we do Star Wars at my house.  Same thing, except your incentive system sounds a lot more fun than mine! And my son is the KING of disproportionate trading practices, I am constantly receiving calls or notes from moms whose kids can’t handle trading with my expert 9 yr old. The kid’s a natural born salesman.

   Posted by Geri C  on  11/23/08  at  03:42 PM

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