How to Get Your Kids to Cooperate with Positive Reinforcement Parenting (Even When You’re in Parenting Hell)
Let’s be real - some days in parenting feel like survival mode.
This episode came straight out of mine. I was quarantined in my home office with COVID, listening to my kids scream for me downstairs while my husband held the line solo. Zero control. Maximum chaos.
And it reminded me of the one strategy I always turn to when I need how to get your child to listen better, how to get kids to do chores, and generally create peace without yelling.
It’s simple. It’s fast. And it works - even in parenting hell.
Let’s talk about positive reinforcement parenting.
Why Positive Reinforcement Parenting Still Works (Even If It Sounds “Old School”)
Lately, “behavioral systems” get a bad rap - like we’re training dogs instead of raising kids. But hear me out.
Humans thrive on encouragement. It’s wired into our brains. Praise makes us feel good - and we naturally do more of what makes us feel good. That’s the foundation of positive reinforcement parenting.
When you reinforce positive behaviors, you’re not bribing your kids. You’re showing them what works, what feels good, and what’s expected. That’s not manipulation - it’s emotional scaffolding.
Want to know how to get your child to listen better? Notice and reward the times they already are.
And let’s face it: would you rather work for a boss who notices what you’re doing right - or one who only points out your flaws?
Exactly.
The 3-Step Strategy That Saves My Sanity
Here’s my go-to method when everything’s falling apart and I need teamwork now. You only need:
A sheet of paper
A marker
A dash of patience
It’s one of my favorite child reward system ideas - quick, effective, and actually fun.
1. Frame your kids as capable cooperators
Start with a statement like: “You are SO good at helping and cooperating. I really need those skills today.”
That subtle mindset shift - starting with belief, not blame - sets the tone for everything that follows. This is key to how to get your child to listen better.
2. Create a simple system
Draw 10 boxes on a piece of paper. This is your team’s “cooperation tracker.” Explain:
“Every time you do something helpful or kind, you earn a point. When we hit 10 points together, we get a reward!”
Make it a team effort (not sibling vs. sibling). This encourages collaboration, not competition.
List out clear, achievable behaviors that count:
Listening the first time
Putting dishes away
Sharing
Brushing teeth without protest
Helping clean up toys
These behaviors are your way to reinforce positive behaviors - and train your child’s brain to focus on what is working.
And it’s one of the best child reward system ideas I know, especially when you’re too tired to invent a new routine.
3. Reward immediately and generously
When they hit 10 points? Celebrate! The reward doesn’t need to be elaborate:
Ice cream
A dance party
Extra 10 minutes of screen time
Reading a favorite book together
Make it tangible, immediate, and tied directly to the cooperation they just showed. Then level up the game: “Let’s see if we can hit 20 points next time!”
This keeps motivation alive while reinforcing the message that positive reinforcement parenting is about teamwork, not control.
This is exactly how to get kids to do chores without turning into a drill sergeant. You’re inviting them into a system that makes success feel exciting and doable.
Why This Works: A Psychologist’s POV
As a child psychologist (and a mom who has 100% been in the trenches), I use this strategy because it teaches:
That how to get kids to do chores isn’t about nagging - it’s about ownership.
That child reward system ideas don’t have to be Pinterest-perfect.
That how to get your child to listen better starts with you seeing them differently.
That when you consistently reinforce positive behaviors, you build trust - not fear.
That positive reinforcement parenting makes life easier, not harder.
This simple tool builds up your child’s confidence while lowering your stress. And when you’re in a hard season? That’s gold.
Pro Tips for Keeping It Going
Don’t take away points. This isn’t a punishment chart. It’s pure encouragement.
Avoid sibling competition. Keep the system team-based.
Keep expectations realistic. Start small and reward fast.
Use rewards they actually care about. That’s the secret sauce.
Be consistent. The more often you reinforce positive behaviors, the more natural they become.
Use this system any time you’re asking yourself how to get your child to listen better without losing your own calm. The more it becomes a habit, the less you’ll need it.
But What If You're the One Struggling?
If it’s not just your kids who are struggling to cooperate - if it’s you who feels tapped out, short-tempered, and unsure how to lead - there’s support for that, too.
At Thriving Child Center, we offer:
Parent-child interaction therapy to help you know how to respond with connection instead of conflict
The Calm and Connected Program, for parents who want their sanity back
The right tools make positive reinforcement parenting doable - even if you’re maxed out. Because knowing how to get kids to do chores means very little if you’re too burnt out to care.
One More Thing…
This strategy won’t just change your child’s behavior - it’ll change how you feel as a parent.
It gives you a reason to notice the good. To look for what’s working. To engage with your child like a team, not a referee.
And that’s the heart of positive reinforcement parenting.
🎧 Want the full breakdown?
Listen to the episode: How to Get Your Kids to Cooperate with Positive Reinforcement Parenting (Even When You’re in Parenting Hell)
You’ve got this. And I’ve got you.
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[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: Welcome to the Educated Parent Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Leah Clionsky, and today I'm going to be telling you one of my favorite strategies for getting kids to cooperate, getting them on board when you just need a sustained period of time where they are really committed to listening to you. And that is what I'm going to be talking about today.
[00:00:26] Leah Clionsky: So today is one of my solo episodes. It's one of our chats where it's just me and you sharing things that I think will be helpful. And right now I am talking about this concept because I am in parenting health, so I don't usually. Share when I am in Parenting Hell and record an episode about that at the exact moment that it's happening to me.
[00:00:53] Leah Clionsky: But this is just so relatable that I thought you needed to hear it. So here is why I'm in parenting hell right now. So I have COVID and nobody else in my family has COVID, and I'm hoping to keep it that way. So I am quarantining away from my kids and my husband in my home office to hopefully spare everyone.
[00:01:16] Leah Clionsky: This virus. If I can, if we can get out with only me, that would be amazing. The problem is, is that the kids can hear me in the house. So it's not like I went on a trip and they were prepared for me to be gone, and they can't forget that I, they can't forget me and move on to another activity because they can actually be aware that I'm here at the actual time all the time.
[00:01:45] Leah Clionsky: So the reason I'm in parenting hell is number when I have COVID, and that's not fun. But also, and worse, I can hear them losing it downstairs because they are so dysregulated that I am suddenly gone and there's nothing I can do about it. So they're screaming, they're having tantrum. They're not listening to anybody.
[00:02:07] Leah Clionsky: And here I am upstairs hearing them scream for me and being unable to step in as a parent. And my husband, of course, is doing an amazing job, but they are at peak like challenge moment right now, and I'm just helpless. And that made me think of my favorite parenting tool when I am the parent in this situation, when I'm the one.
[00:02:30] Leah Clionsky: Suddenly really needing kids to get on board with me, and I have told my husband about it, so hopefully implementing it will be helpful to him. But I'm gonna share the tool I use all the time and the tool that I often recommend to parents. When you're in this situation, when you're like, all right, things are going off the rails.
[00:02:50] Leah Clionsky: I have one or more kids who are kind of losing their minds. I really need some teamwork. I really need some cooperation. This is a quick and easy behavioral system that I like to use. Now, before I tell you more about it. I wanna address people's reluctance to use behavioral systems. All of a sudden, in the past year, the idea of doing anything with the word behavior in it has become like a dirty word, like, oh, behavior.
[00:03:20] Leah Clionsky: It's like dog training. We should never use behavioral systems. And I think that that's a real problem because the reality is that human beings respond really well to influences from other humans. Like, that's just why we often do things. Would you rather spend time with someone who's saying good things to you?
[00:03:43] Leah Clionsky: Who's noticing your strengths? Who's saying positive kind things to you and pointing out when you're doing things well? Or would you rather hang out with somebody who's criticizing you all the time? Right? Both of those things affect our behavior. If I'm around someone who's noticing good things and pointing them out to me.
[00:04:03] Leah Clionsky: I'm gonna do more of those good things because I feel good about the person and also because I'm gonna want more praise, right? I'm gonna want more positive attention, and that is behaviorism, right? It doesn't always have to be an actual physical reward that you get for doing a good thing, although honestly, being rewarded for doing good things is also very incentivizing.
[00:04:25] Leah Clionsky: For example, how many of us would go to work if we didn't make any money? So human beings like to know what expectations are. We really like to know what other people want from us. We want to know how to meet those expectations, and we like to get positive feedback when we do meet those expectations. And kids are like that too.
[00:04:45] Leah Clionsky: They like to know what does mommy and daddy, what your mommy and daddy want? From me, what are they looking for? And then when we set reasonable, developmentally appropriate expectations and offer positive feedback for doing those things, kids feel amazing and they're much more likely to cooperate with us.
[00:05:07] Leah Clionsky: So that's what this system is designed to do, and it is effective and behavioral systems done right. Don't take away a kid's desire to do things on their own. I actually grew up with behavioral systems. I may have mentioned to you that my parents were both psychologists. I don't know if I've ever told you that on this podcast.
[00:05:27] Leah Clionsky: Yes. I grew up with two psychologist parents, and there was this way in my house called the Point Board. Where we could earn special prizes at the end of the week for doing certain chores and activities around the house. And for me, what I really enjoyed was being able to check off everything on the list and think about what a big kid I was and how I was able to accomplish all these hard things, which were completely appropriate for me to do.
[00:05:54] Leah Clionsky: So for me it was less about the reward, it was more about the, good feeling I got that I realized I was able to. To do big kid things. It made me feel good about myself. My parents were proud of me, positive overall experience, and clearly it has not affected my desire to do things for myself on my own.
[00:06:12] Leah Clionsky: So you don't have to worry about that, especially with a system, this simple. Okay, so now you've heard my brief talk about behaviorism. I'll talk about it again later because there's some other systems that are more complicated than the one I'm going to talk to you about today. I'm trying to give you something quick, simple, easy.
[00:06:34] Leah Clionsky: When you're looking at your kids and you're like, I need to incentivize some positive behaviors. I need to get some cooperation and I need to get it now. So this is a very simple system. You need two things. You need a piece of paper and you need something to write on the paper with marker, pen, pencil. I don't care what it is and what you're going to create.
[00:06:58] Leah Clionsky: Is a cooperation reward system. Super basic. So this is what I say to my kids. I say to them, I know that you guys are really, really helpful and really good at cooperating, and you really, really good at showing me that you can cooperate and help me out. And so I'm gonna need you to use those skills right now.
[00:07:26] Leah Clionsky: The first thing you do is you set a positive expectation about your kids. You don't say, you are not cooperating with me. You're giving me a really hard time, and that needs to change. You set it up that way. You're already in an antagonistic relationship, but what you want to do is you wanna remind your kids that they are really.
[00:07:48] Leah Clionsky: Good at cooperating that they have this skill and that it's something that you admire and respect. Just like thinking about how you would feel if someone else talks to you, you know, if they say, , you are a really great cook and I would love you to cook something for me, you're way more likely to do that than if they say, I think you're a terrible cook and you can work on it, so let's practice cooking.
[00:08:10] Leah Clionsky: Right? Very different feelings about being involved in a, in a, in an activity. So first thing you're doing, you're setting a positive expectation around cooperating. Okay? The second thing you're gonna say is, in fact, you guys are such good cooperators that I really wanna keep track of how well you cooperate.
[00:08:35] Leah Clionsky: So today, whenever you cooperate with me, I'm going to give you a point. On this piece of paper, I'm gonna put down a mark and that way we can keep track of exactly how cooperative you are, and we're gonna do it as a team so it's not siblings against each other, it's team cooperation together. And then you're gonna explain what cooperation is.
[00:09:03] Leah Clionsky: So you always have to explain what you're looking for. So then I'll say to my kids, what are some good examples of cooperating? And they're really quick to tell me. They're like listening the first time. I'm like, yep, that's great. Cooperation and brushing my teeth. Yep. That's amazing cooperation. So if you do things that you know will be helpful even before I tell you to do them.
[00:09:26] Leah Clionsky: That is excellent cooperation, sharing with my brother also, great cooperation, like basically almost all positive activities to me in these moments are good cooperation, right? They are, we are working together. They are helping me out. They are using their forces for good instead of turning on me. So Alec, come up with a bunch of those examples.
[00:09:47] Leah Clionsky: These are all great cooperation and we will just come up with a whole bunch of them together. So step one is you tell your kids that you have good belief in their cooperation. The second is that you go over examples of what cooperation looks like. And the third is you introduce this piece of paper, and you say that you're going to keep track of every single time and you're gonna tell them out loud.
[00:10:15] Leah Clionsky: And if you can get to a very small number of points. I'd be a kid, like 10 points between two kids. You know, you want them to get it quickly, then there's gonna be a reward. And it can be, it does not have to be like a prize. It can be, we're gonna watch a TV show, we're gonna do. A dance party, we're gonna have ice cream.
[00:10:38] Leah Clionsky: We're going to stay up five minutes past our bedtime. We're going to get to drink a juice box in the bathtub. I mean, like, it doesn't matter. It just has to be incentivizing and exciting to them. So that's the setup for this. Okay. Then what you're gonna do is you're going to start noticing every single time that they're cooperating.
[00:11:04] Leah Clionsky: In any way, and you're going to praise it out loud and give them a point and they might show off right away. They're like, look at me, mommy. I'm bringing my cup to the sink. Excellent cooperating. I'm so impressed that you're bringing your dishes to the sink. You guys get a cooperation point. Go team. Look mommy, I'm sharing with my brother.
[00:11:25] Leah Clionsky: Great cooperation. So impressed. That's exactly what you're looking what I'm looking for. Excellent. I knew you would be so good at cooperating. So you are all over those. You are giving these points generously. Like you're not like trying to like hold back and not give these points. You are giving these points.
[00:11:44] Leah Clionsky: Like, like is like a way like candy, like you're like, yep. Anything that looks like cooperation, anything better than rebellion, you are rewarding at this point. And when they hit those 10 points, bam, you're gonna give that reward right away. You're gonna incentivize that. You're going to show them that you are reliable, that you're gonna do the thing that you said that you're going to do, and then you're gonna set a bigger goal and you're like, wow, you guys are really good at cooperating.
[00:12:12] Leah Clionsky: I bet you can move to level two and get 20 points. Oh yeah, we can do it. Then you go back, alright, let's look over for 20 points. And so what you're doing is you're just putting a lot of your attention on the good things that you're doing, that they're doing, and that is doing several things. One is it's making you notice their positive behavior.
[00:12:33] Leah Clionsky: So when you notice the positive things that someone else is doing, you feel good about them. It changes the way you're talking. It changes the way you're relating to them. It is creating a much better vibe. Especially if you are stressed out. The second thing it's doing is it's helping your kids see that they are able to do good things, and it's being very specific about what those good things are.
[00:12:59] Leah Clionsky: That is really positive too. And then they're feeling good about themselves. They're like, yeah, I can be on a team. I can be super helpful. We can all work together. Right? These are like really positive activities and because it's a team effort, there's not a competition like who's gonna get more points.
[00:13:18] Leah Clionsky: Like there's no like trying to get the other sibling to cause a problem so that you win, you know, so that one of the siblings wins and one of them loses. It's about them. Collaborating with one another, and what I usually see my kids do is like give each other suggestions for ways that they can cooperate and like helping each other out.
[00:13:37] Leah Clionsky: If they notice that one of them is having a hard time, and then I sometimes will give double cooperation points, so I'm very generous. I give immediate reward. For hitting these goals, I move up levels. You know, you don't wanna make it too hard, like you want them to have a lot of success and you wanna be very, very generous.
[00:13:56] Leah Clionsky: And in these, like, in these times where you're really focused and you're really noticing and they are really trying, then you will have a lot more cooperation in your interactions. So I tend to use this system. If my husband is on a trip if there's like something really specific that I really need to buckle down and do, like packing for something, or there's some sort of chaos going on and I just need to get everybody on board, these are the times where I will pull out like a really intensive, like positive.
[00:14:31] Leah Clionsky: System. But notice you don't need much, right? You're not like writing down a million things. You are literally just making check marks and keeping track and calling out positive behaviors. And it does work. It is effective, and it makes every single person feel good. Who is involved in this system? So I have a little COVID brain, so let me go back and make sure that our strategies are clear, right?
[00:14:58] Leah Clionsky: So when you're setting up the system. You are being, you are telling your kids that they're good at cooperating, you are helping them identify what cooperation behaviors are. You are explaining that you're gonna put down points, and then you do, and then you're offering those rewards when your kids. The different goals, and you're gonna make sure that this is very doable.
[00:15:25] Leah Clionsky: You're not gonna set goals like we're gonna get 300 points unrealistic. You're also not gonna take away points for not cooperating. This is a positive only system. You know, you're incentivizing, incentivizing, incentivizing, incentivizing, incentivizing positive behaviors. And it is amazing how kids will rise to the occasion.
[00:15:45] Leah Clionsky: So I hope this is helpful. I hope that my parenting health has led to some positive outcomes for you. If you notice that you're running into just a lot of struggles with getting kids, your kids to cooperate in general, if you're getting a lot of pushback, if you realize, Hey, it's hard for me to like notice positive things my kids do, you know, there's some ways that we can help you.
[00:16:09] Leah Clionsky: So there is parent child interaction therapy. If you have a kid two to eight years old, that is an amazing, amazing treatment for helping you get a lot more positive interactions with your child and get you to see your child more positively. We also offer older child treatments that have the same principles in our Thriving Child Center clinic.
[00:16:32] Leah Clionsky: If you realize that the problem might be that you are getting too dysregulated. You are getting too anxious, you are getting too frustrated. You are having a really hard time implementing a simple plan because of your feelings and just your own stress level. Then you might really benefit from our calm and connected program.
[00:16:50] Leah Clionsky: For parents, super non-judgmental. This is normal. It is really, really hard to be a parent and learning some strategies to take care of you with other parents. Extremely validating and helpful, and you deserve to have your support because we all know that the calmer we can stay, the more effective we can be, and that's true whether you are any parent or a child psychologist or the poor husband of a child psychologist who's getting advice while he's in the trenches and she is sick in an office and unhelpful.
[00:17:24] Leah Clionsky: So, you know, I appreciate you take good care of yourself, and I hope none of you get COVID and you avoid parenting hell too.