Do Dots Family System

The original post was written in January of 2015. I wrote an update at the bottom of this post in March 2021.

A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about something she was doing in her family to help her family function better.  Her teenage autistic son had been struggling a lot so they had been working with behavior therapists to help him and this "Do Dots Family System" had been recommended.  As she described it, I was greatly intrigued since it sounded like something I wanted to implement at my own house.

I looked into it and decided to purchase it right after Thanksgiving.  Here is my review of how it has worked for us over the last six weeks or so.

The basic idea of the chart is that children need to take care of their responsibilities before they get any privileges.  It strongly reinforces the concept of "Work Before Play".  The chart helps children see in a very visual way that, until they have completed their responsibilities, they are on Level 1 which has NO privileges.  But as soon as they complete their work, they can turn over the magnets to show the colored side and then they can move their picture to Level 2.  Level 2 has privileges such as playing with friends, getting on the computer, going out, etc.  Every child has his own row with his own color of magnets,  On the Responsibilities row, the assigned job is placed with a white magnet and that gets covered up with the right color when the job is done.

Camille is now on Level 2 so she can have a computer turn or call a friend.

There are 5 things to do on Level 1.  They are: a daily job (or jobs--we have a few rotating jobs such as cooking dinner, laundry and dishes), a "routine", practicing, homework, and bedroom.  The routine can be whatever you want.  For us, on weekdays, the routine is to be on time for school and coming home afterwards.  On weekends and vacation days, the routine is an extra job.

I still need to get a picture for our exchange student who is "J".

The chart also has a space for "tickets" which you earn with extra jobs or good behavior and then you can buy things from the family store with the tickets; however, I have not used that feature at all since it seems like a lot more work for me.  The bottom part of the chart has a place for goals to be written, a place to show if you have done any service that week, and also a Family Home Evening chart.  We didn't need one of those, so I turned it into a Sunday job chart.  I would like to use the goals row but we haven't started doing that.

The advantages of the system are that it's very easy to see when you are done with your work.  The chart can be the bad guy.  If the child comes to the parent and asks, "Can I have a computer turn?"  The parent asks, "Are you on Level 2?"  The child can easily see if they have earned privileges or not.  My experience is that it's much easier to motivate a child to do their work if they don't get to play until it's done and this chart helps a lot with that.

In theory, implementation is pretty simple.  But with children involved, it's never simple!  The main challenge for me is what to do when children take privileges that they haven't earned.  This requires a fair amount of supervision on my part to make sure that children aren't on the computer before they've earned it (but they can still do their homework on the computer) or have adequately cleaned their bedroom, etc.   With a few children, I have to inspect their bedroom to make sure it's really gotten cleaned.  I think it would be easier if I had started this a long time ago when my children were much younger.  It's definitely harder to implement with older children who are more set in their ways.  So we're still getting used to it.  Hopefully at some point, it will become automatic.

The training videos say it will take two weeks of constant vigilance to get your children used to this idea of privileges coming on Level 2.  I wasn't as consistent at enforcing it as I could be--I don't recommend starting it in December.  But it's January now and I'm working on it.  On Friday night, we had to call a child and have them come home from an activity to clean their bedroom better.  This was not popular but my husband did most of the parenting in that situation and our child cooperated.  I felt good that we were consistent in enforcing this family rule instead of just feeling angry.

If it looks appealing to you, here are some things to be aware of:

1.  It's very expensive.  Personally I think it's overpriced.  I decided to buy it on Black Friday when they had a 30% off coupon for the first 5 customers.  I got the discount but it still cost me over $100.  I thought about making my own system with my own adaptations but didn't.  They have copyrighted their design.  If I used more aspects of the chart, it might not feel so overpriced.  They post their upcoming promotions and discounts on their Facebook page.

2.  As I mentioned previously, you have to be vigilant in enforcing the "no privileges" aspect of Level 1.  One problem I haven't resolved yet is with children who come home from school and immediately start reading.  Reading seems like a pretty great activity but if they don't get their homework and practicing done because they've been reading too long, then it's a problem.  For now, I let them read.  Sometimes my children have so much homework and other obligations that they don't get any play time until late in the day when it's too late to get together with friends.  But sometimes that's how life is.

3.  You need to have a big enough space on your wall in your kitchen area.  We didn't have a good spot until my husband took down a piece of chair rail on a wall (and retextured and repainted).  The chart needs to be very convenient and not too hard for children to reach (although toddlers can be a problem in messing it up as I found out when our granddaughter came to visit a few weeks ago--however we were able to solve it.)

4.  They have training videos and a parent forum that you can access after you purchase the system.  The videos and forum were moderately helpful but I felt irritated that I couldn't look at them while I was trying to decide whether to buy it.  Knowing more about the system before I bought it would have been really helpful.  I wish they were less concerned about protecting their ideas. They could do it in such a way that they promote their product in the process but they haven't chosen to do that.

5.  It takes some effort on the part of the parents to keep it organized.  I still need to get in the habit of flipping over the magnets every night before I go to bed and making sure the jobs are what they're supposed to be.  I haven't used the tickets at all because that would be more work. They suggest changing the daily job once a week but I only change it every six months, because it's so much easier on the parents.

6.  More blank white stickers to customize your chart are needed.  They have pre-printed white stickers along with some blank ones.  I ran out of blank ones because my jobs are different than theirs and so I had to use a leftover colored one (you can see it in the Sunday job lineup).  I think a chart that was more flexible and adaptable to people's variable situations would sell better.  I am surprised that "dishes" is not one of their pre-printed stickers.

Bottom line:  Despite my concerns, I still really like the visual aspect of this chart that helps my children see that work comes before play.  That's a concept I wish I had learned earlier in my life and that I really want my children to learn.  I can see myself using this chart for a long time and only wish I had had it earlier.

****Update:  This has turned out to be my most popular blog post (which is not saying much). In the interest of full disclosure, I actually stopped using this system maybe a year after I posted this review, possibly sooner. It didn't really meet our family's needs and it felt like more work than it was worth. My best system has been the simplest--the one I can carry in my head. My kids have the same morning job for six months. They do it before they eat breakfast and it usually only takes about 5 minutes. They have an extension of that job on Saturday mornings which needs to be done before they earn privileges. Once a week, they help with making dinner (or make dinner alone) and then once a week they have dishes alone.