Review

Happy Tokens- they make this mummy happy!!

updated on 1 Comment on Happy Tokens- they make this mummy happy!!

When living with a Threenager.. Life can become somewhat stressful especially when the classic Diva strop takes over and I have a child throwing herself around the house screaming ‘I want to wear the princess dress’ in this situation what the heck does one do?!  Other times she can be a sweet little angel by doing as she is told with pleases and Thankyou’s.  In both situations I never thought there was a way I could show when I was really pleased and when behaviour made me sad- until I discovered ‘Happy Tokens’ at www.happytokens.co.ukHappy Tokens is a family run business- where husband and wife team came up with the concept and piloted on their own children, they even make all the components and run the business from part of their home on a daily basis. We were delighted when we were asked to review the ‘Single Custom Flower Tube Starter Pack’ that retails are £12.99. The Pack includes


·  1 Flower top Token Tube Personalised with your child’s own name in the colour of your choice

  • 10 Happy Tokens in the colour of your choice

  • 10 Sad Tokens in the colour of your choice

  • 1 Special ‘Good Job’/’Gold star’ Gold Token

  • The all-important ‘how to booklet’

  • Tubes are 100mm tall and 50mm at top and bottom

  • Tokens are 28mm diameter and 3mm thick

  • Each tube can hold approx. 30 tokens.

When we received the pack I was really excited to sit down with Erin and explain what happens when we start to use them! We opened the box and she was really excited that her name was printed down the side of the tube in pink! As we are able to choose the colours of the sad and happy tokens and the name on the tube I picked all Erin’s favourite colours to ensure she was engaged and this definitely worked! The tube isn’t massive so you don’t have to find somewhere specific for it, and the tokens are not too small that you lose them but a nice size to be able to have in your pocket for when the moment arises.  The theory behind the tokens are that when your child completes a task or a behaviour that is acceptable and good they retrieve a happy token, when they complete a behaviour that is unacceptable they have a sad faced token. There is a special gold token for super good jobs that are completed or really good behaviour. Erin understood the concept easily and was eager to begin. I told her that when her pot was full if she had more happy than good then she was able to have a small treat- Sad tokens are also able to be taken out when replaced with good behaviour so I was hoping that this worked well.

As the week went on we had issued two happy faces and then it struck! A full blown threenager Beyoncé diva strop! I calmly took out a sad token and gave it to Erin and asked her to put it in her pot… her face dropped…. The tantrum stopped… and she looked unhappy… went to the pot and put it in. I would never have believed that it would distract her so much that she would stop her tantrum part way through! She apologized and I explained that if she was a good girl she was able to take her sad token back out. The rest of the day her behaviour was impeccable!! I must admit… I do become a little slack with rewards etc. and often find that I am forgetting but with this as its so simple I am making a conservative effort to keep up the system and the one massive point is it makes me shout less which I love as I am always trying to find ways of keeping my voice controlled to show her that shouting isn’t the way to communicate (although this is sometimes difficult!) It has been a real turning point in our house and so easy to use when out and about as well. She has a separate part of her bag to collect her tokens when out of the house to then transfer to her pot when she is home. It has made a difference to her behaviour and we are really enjoying using the system. Another great plus point is that Nursery use ‘emotions’ in their lessons to teach the children how people feel so Erin really works well off ‘mummy is Sad’ or ‘mummy is happy’ so not only are we reinforcing good behaviour but we are reinforcing what she is learning at Nursery! There are endless plus points to this product and we love it! So Thank you Happy Tokens, for letting us be involved in your fantastic product.