The Positive Reinforcement App that Positively Works

One of the preset boards in Smiles & Frowns is called “Teacher’s Helper”, and it’s meant to do exactly that. But what it can really do to make a teacher’s life easier may surprise you.

Let me explain, because it may give you a chance to help a teacher out.

First of all, I’m sure we all are familiar with star charts in the classroom. Teachers used them when we were kids, and they still use them today. It’s one of the most important places to work on behavior, in fact.

So when we were putting together Smiles & Frowns, we created a board built for the classroom, too, focused on completing assignments, following rules, good classroom and hallway behavior and those sorts of things. You download the app and can see it right here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smiles-frowns/id1058499314

I thought it could help teachers replace those big old boards with the marvels of modern technology. And maybe it could. But then I showed it to my sister.

My sister is a teacher in the midwest. She’s kind of a Super Teacher, actually. She’s well-respected, has been honored with awards, is incredibly experienced, and is completely unafraid to tell me what I don’t know. And what I didn’t know was this…

On top of everything else they do, many teachers also have to put together two or three individual behavior plans for individual students in every single classroom. These plans are meant to help particular kids overcome particular challenges with their behavior, and their progress is something that needs to be regularly reviewed with parents and counselors.

It’s an awesome thing that they do for our kids, but it also can become an incredibly time-consuming part of their already overloaded day. Can you imagine?

My sister told me that this is where Smiles & Frowns could really help.  A teacher could very easily create a custom a board for every student that needs an individual behavior plan. Then all the best features of Smiles & Frowns – all the easy ways to mark behaviors, manage rewards, review progress, and even invites parents to sync with their child’s board – could really come through to save that teacher some time

The big board in from of the class stays, but Smiles & Frowns still can help that teacher in a whole different way. Now there’s the marvels of modern technology for you.

So, on behalf of my Super Teacher Sister, I’d like to hand out this little assignment today.

Please tell the busy teachers in your life about the Smiles & Frowns app. Present it like a shiny red apple. Maybe it’s exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Maybe you’ll be the Teacher’s Helper today.

Good luck out there, and hurray for teachers!

– Tommy G from Smiles & Frowns

To install Smiles & Frowns for free, just click here!

Wow, is this really worth a post? Why Smile & Frowns?

I mean, rewards charts use all sorts of things, so it doesn’t really matter, right?

Why not “Checks & Xs” or “Stars & Strikes” or “Thumbs Up & Thumbs Down?”

To be honest, we almost forgot why we first settled on Smiles and Frowns ourselves, and nearly made switching the icons an actual feature of the app. Good thing being tight on app-building money made us think twice.

Because there is a reason, and we think it does makes a difference.

When we started out, using smiles and frowns was just kind of an obvious gut call. It made sense and was a good place to start. But then we ran across the work of a woman named Michelle Garcia Winner. Michelle is a pioneer in the area of social thinking theory, and she developed an approach called social mapping. (She is awesome, by the way, and her stuff is easy to search out.)

What she does is divide behavior into two groups: expected behaviors, which usually lead to positive social outcomes, and unexpected behaviors, which generally lead to social frustration. Sometimes, we noticed, she would have people make lists of expected behaviors  on a worksheet with a smiley face, and unexpected behaviors on a sheet with a frowny face.

That’s when we realized smiles and frowns were more than just symbols. They were more like natural cues that could help kids recognize their own behavior through the reactions of others. You can’t really say that for stars or checks or jelly beans in a jar.

As parents, we thought it might change the conversation from just “was I being good or bad?’ to “how is my behavior connecting with the people around me?”  We just thought that was a better way to look at things as a family.

So we committed. Smiles & Frowns, it would be. They’re cute, they’re catchy and they make a great pair – all of which really matter to kids.  But better yet, they actually mean something.

If you try the app, you might be amazed how quickly your kids start seeing the world, and talking to you about behavior, in terms of Smiles and Frowns, too.

Good thing we didn’t change them.

Install Smiles & Frowns and see what you think.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smiles-frowns/id1058499314