How and When to Phase Out the MotivAider (Children)

The more the child experiences immediately rewarding results from engaging in the new behavior — and the less resistance she feels to engaging in it — the more quickly and firmly the new behavior will set. The less immediately rewarding the results are — and the more resistance she feels to engaging in the new behavior — the more challenging it will be to create a self-sustaining habit.

Once a child is consistently doing what the MotivAider is prompting her to do and she's had ample opportunity to experience the benefits of the new behavior, it's time to see whether the change will hold on its own. You do this by gradually phasing out the MotivAider.

Although there are no hard and fast rules about exactly how to phase out the MotivAider, here's a general approach that seems to work well:

• Make a series of reductions in how often the child receives signals. Each reduction should result in the child receiving signals about half as often as he had been receiving them before the reduction. For example, if the child had been receiving signals every 10 minutes, set the MotivAider to send him signals every 20 minutes.

• Two or three days after each reduction, if the child is doing just as well as she was doing before the reduction, go ahead and make another reduction.

• If the child is still doing well after a few reductions, try discontinuing the MotivAider completely.

• If at any time in the course of trying to phase out the MotivAider, the child is not doing as well as she had been before you started trying, just undo the last reduction you made. If she's still not doing as well, undo the previous reduction, and so forth.

• Once the child has been getting good results again for several days, try again to phase out the MotivAider. This time, however, make smaller reductions and don't discontinue the MotivAider until you've been able to make more consecutive reductions without any backsliding.

• If you successfully phase out the MotivAider for a particular purpose but later notice that the child is not doing as well, don't hesitate to use the MotivAider again for that same purpose. Often, brief refresher use is all it takes to quickly restore the gains a child made earlier.