The Rock Show

We have a new economy in the Meehan household. Fred Flintstone would be proud. Jeffrey has taken affection to brightly colored smooth fish aquarium stones. We were at a wedding recently and he grabbed a handful of the one decorating the buffet table and put them in his pockets. Remember, this is the boy who can’t seem to hold his pants up on a regular day without 2 pounds of shiny plastic stones tempting gravity.

Currency, in an economy, can be anything that mutual parties agree has value and can be easily transferred. In The Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the Triganic Pu is an example of a bad unit of currency. The Triganic Pu is subdivided into eight Ningis. The Ningi is a “triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles a side” and hence nobody has ever owned enough Ningis to own one Pu.

Aquarium rocks, on the other hand, are small, brightly colored and have immense value to our boy.

So we’ve started a system where we “pay” Jeffrey when he does good things or is especially helpful. There’s no rock-based penalty for bad behavior, however. Then we use a schedule that Danielle and I came up with to determine what he can “spend” his rocks on. So far, here’s what we have:

• 1 Rock – Extra story at bed time
• 3 Rocks – Play Super Mario Galaxy with Dad (he mostly watches, with a Wii remote sitting idle on his lap)
• 10 Rocks – Special outting (Lego day at Toys R Us, a birthday party, Trick or Treating at the Mall)
• 10 Rocks – Ice Cream dessert
• 50 Rocks – Movie date at the theater with Mom & Dad

Of course, I’m working this from the Math angle. He’s already learned to start calculating how many rocks he’ll have if he asks for different rewards.

This led to the comment last night, “Danielle, can you finish up the dishes? I have to play Wii with Jeffrey. He’s already pre-paid his rocks.”

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