One game that I’m constantly reminding myself to play with my son Sam is the Good Deed Gotcha Game. Saliha introduced this game at our house. The rules are simple. Catch someone doing something good. Sam catches Saliha doing something good. I spot Saliha or Sam being amazing. And occasionally, I even get caught doing something good myself (shocking, I know). Let me explain how we play the game.
We have a poster board on the wall with three columns titled Sam, Dada and Saliha. We have a sticker book nearby. It’s one of those sticker books you can get at Walmart or Michael’s that has five hundred stickers. You don’t want expensive stickers for this.
Then, at any point day or night, in the exact moment the “good deed” happens, Saliha will say, “Someone is going to get a sticker.” Or I’ll say, “I just caught someone doing something great!” Everybody stops and starts looking around like they’ve just been nabbed for shoplifting. (You can play this part up if you like.) Then the person who saw something good explains what they saw. “Sam just took his dishes to the sink.” or “Dada just showed he was being patient by waiting for Sam finish his drawing before brushing his teeth.” We mark it when someone makes an effort; when someone creates space.
Then the person who spotted the good deed goes and puts a sticker in the good deed doer’s column. In our house no one is ever allowed to put a sticker up for themselves. We are also not allowed to point out our good deeds. Someone else has to spot it.
Additionally, when you get fifty stickers, you can trade them in for five dollars. (We like to bribe our family members when ever possible. You may be a bit more wary about that sort of thing…)
The benefit of the game is that it breaks the cycle of catching people doing something wrong. As parents, spouses or even children, we can often get into a habit of pointing out lots of errors. And that can be a killer. This game reminds all parties to be on the lookout for and to grow good moments.
The really great part of this game is that kids are very curious in the moment you say someone got “caught”. They love the surprise of it and are really ready to listen to what the good deed was. Much more so than if you just give them a compliment. This game PRIMES them to take in and consider what is being noticed. But there’s even more….
Here’s the powerful transformational part…
Good actions by any member of the family can often are obscured within a more complex and sometimes difficult interaction. If Sam and I are having a heated discussion about rules, or tone of voice, or respect or anything else loaded and difficult, the conversation can end with everyone feeling a bit down.
In that moment, Saliha (it’s usually Saliha who is so good at tracking the relational parts of these conversations) will say, “Someone’s going to get a sticker.” And then, she’ll say something like this: “Sam is going to get a sticker because he hung in on this conversation and shared his feelings. And Dada’s going to get a sticker because he shared how upset he was.”
A good deed is often part of a complex framework of interactions and can be obscured by challenging stuff unless you mark it and declare it. The Good Deed Gotcha Game is a way to mark and grow success even within a challenging exchange of complex human emotions.
The other part of this game I like is that it makes Sam responsible for noticing the actions of others and assigning a positive to those actions. Also good. He gets to be a partner in designing our family’s priorities in that moment. Even if he is just giving me a sticker for serving ice cream.
So play the Good Deed Gotcha Game. It rocks.
