Sticker Charts, Point Sytems, and Other Motivational Schemes

I hate sticker charts too, I really do!
They work until the child realizes that a sticker and resulting reward is not a big enough motivation for the doing what was asked.
Since I hate sticker charts too, I wrote a Seminar On Demand devoted to solving this exact situation.
Go to my website, ProActive Parenting and click Seminars on Demand, then go to seminar #8, Self-Control, Are you allowed to do that?" The method works like a charm, and works for all ages.

Also take a look at the right and left sidebar of the home page for a free audio, and tons of free tips that we just posted this weekend, enjoy!
Good Luck , The Mommie Mentor, ProActive Parenting, www.proactiveparenting.net

Bridgette,

I found this totally cool website (and totally free!) It's handipoints.com They have a place where you can create chore charts and youc an set up rewards. The whole thing is on a point system. There are also games and things that the kids can play online and virtual things they can "buy" with bonus points. My kids really like this website. Good luck!!

Something that works well for us, especially during the summer, is the "jar". You can choose to put into it what you like. We use marbles, sometimes, red balls other times, ornaments (tiny) for Christmas, etc. When they play nicely together, say something nice or do somthing nice for another sibling, they get to put 1-5 marbles in the jar. When the jar is filled, they get to choose an activity to do together, but they must decide together. You can have a list ready that they brainstorm beforehand to choose the activities from. My kids have chosen, play a board game with parents, go out for icecream, see a movie, etc.

I go to wal-mart and get random little toys (depending on what your girls like) and everytime you don't have to remind them to do something you can pull out the prize bag and they don't get to look in it but just reach in and pick a prize when the other girls see that she got a special prize they will try hard to remember. I think that maybe the suprize of not knowing what they will get really works in our favor too!

I am hating all these artificial methods for behavior shaping too.
Check out Gordon Neufeld's book Hold Onto Your Kids: Why Parents Should Matter More Than Peers. It is often at the local library.
It explains how and why parenting is natural and a lot easier if the relationship between parent and child is strengthened. It talks about common mistakes we make in discipline and we end up driving away our kids. See section on "Counterwill"!

Hi B.-
I use sticker charts and when they reach 20 stickers (for whatever we're doing- I use it for their music practices)... they get a small prize like an ice cream out or $5 gift card... I know you don't like sticker charts, but they can work for different things.
For me, they don't work well for the "daily" grind! My boys have a list of responsibilities, and are expected to do them every day. If they complete them all, there is no fee for the day! If I have to go behind them, make their bed, hang up their towels, put their clothes away, or do their daily house chore, I charge $1 for each item (I call it maid service... because they are expecting me to be their maid).
This has worked wonders for us and I've only made a few dollars so far! We keep track on the notepad on the frig. I also charge $4 for a bad attitude. I feel that's more serious than forgetting a chore. (By the way, I give them opportunities to earn the money back by helping with extra chores or being helpful in other areas. )
Anyway, just another idea. Hope it helps. It keeps the "monkeys off the back"... and puts the resonsibility in their corner.
What works for your 7 and 5 yr old might not work well for the 3 yr. old... of course, you can tailor your system to your needs.
Have fun.
toni

Hi B.,

There is an excellent reason why you hate sticker charts...they don't really work in the long run. Many years ago (about 16) I came across an interview with a well-known educator, Alfie Kohn, discussing rewards and punishments. I looked up the interview (luckily, I found it on the internet, as it is easier than sending you my hardcopy). http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/pbracwak.htm

I have read much of his material and put the ideas to the test over the years. Thus, I can wholeheartedly recommed investigating his work and premises to others. My 15 year old son often shares with others his appreciation that I am willing to be "different" from other parents; from my point of view, I am delighted that he has a wonderfully compassionate heart and is always willing to help others and interact with all ages. My 11 year old is more of a challenge, but he also has a number of relatively minor learning/perceiving challenges as well. Still, he has a great heart and is kind and loving...and generally willingly helpful. He also agrees that the reward systems don't work for him--he just gets bored and irritated. Instead, I attempt to make the "chores" more enjoyable when we can do them together and/or have a lot of other positive activities, not necessarily related to what I ask him to do.

Both sons are home educated and are active in various activities and interests with others. We have 9 horses, 9 dwarf dairy goats (3 does we currently milk for family use), 40+ chickens, chicks, guinea keets, rabbit, dog, cats, fish, gerbil, etc. We ride horses, bikes, go hiking, garden, read a wide variety of materials, have lots of opportunity for creative (and necessary) hands on projects, and of course...lots of interaction with the animals. I teach riding and also train horses, dogs, etc., as well as do other work from our home, so I often need the boys to step in and lend a hand. They have great friends, who are often over at our place.

Best of luck and I really hope you find ideas that work well for your daughters and you.

C. A.

I read in one of my parenting magazines - or could have been online even - or maybe watching one of those shows on TLC or Bravo. Try fake flowers - One large vase on the counter holding all the flowers, then one vase for each daughter. As they do the right actions - they get a flower. When their vase if full (actually I think it was a tv show and the picked a different color for each child) when they got all of their color they got something.. so maybe have a special prize chest or something similar. Then the flowers go back in the large vase and they start over.

Anyway, that is what came to mind right away when reading your post.

I use a rock jar with my son. He's 5 and we've been using it for at least 1.5 years. I bought a couple glass vases from Goodwill and started with a smaller one so he could see it fill up fast then after a time or two, moved up to a bigger jar. We collected the rocks from the beach in San Diego, you could use marbles, shells, rocks all of which you could find at Michaels. When he does his chores, listens, does what he's told, etc. he gets to put a rock in the jar. When he's bad, doesn't listen, has an attitude, etc. a rock is taken out the jar and he has to earn it back. When the jar is full he gets $1 for the dollar store, a toy he's been wanting, extra tv time or some kind of reward. I tried the star charts too and they didn't go over well for us either but this has been working great. It's a very visual thing and I think that helps. Good luck.

Hi B.,

I feel the same way about sticker charts...lol They seemed like the time and effort out weighs the benefit. One thing I did for my daughters when they were a school aged is, raffle tickets. I bought a huge role, and when they did their chores or behaved they way I was trying to get them too I would give them a raffle ticket. One would go in the bucket (an old coffee can) on top of the fridge, and one for them (they decorated their own coffee cans).

Every Saturday, we would sit down and figure out what we were raffling this time, sometimes it was me making their favorite dessert with dinner, sometimes it was a trip to their favorite fast food place (fast food was always a treat at my house, common at their dad's though), maybe a inexpensive toy they really wanted, whatever. I would guide them a little but they would make their own choice, I would pick a ticket out of the bucket and who ever had the matching ticket got their prize.

I found the tickets to be much more rewarding for us because it appeals to a child's desire to "collect" things, and it helped them be responsible too.

Good Luck,
C.

Hey B.!

How about the bean system. Each have a clear jar with their name on it & you use any dry bean (pinto or lima etc) and you award a bean or more however you decide rewarding for good behavior and taking away for bad. Have a list for what the beans could be earned for if saved & goals acheived. It really is important for them to see you telling them here is 1 bean for your jar & they get excited when they add it up or have more than the other sibling. It made 1 want to do better so they could "have another bean too!" LOL Good Luck!

A friend of mine uses a type of point or reward system. As the children do chores etc, they are awarded points. When they reach 10 points (or whatever number you choose), they get to pick out a small toy from Target.

You could also do this with tags that have assigned duties. As the duty is done and the parent "signs off" the tag goes into the "basket". The child with the most tags at the end of a week gets a special treat. This may create a bit of competition but if the competition is positive and resulting in positive outcomes, it is worth it. You can also use this time to encourage the child with the most tags to "share" with the others.

Good luck,

L.

See if you can get the book: 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (123 Magic) by Thomas W. Phelan.
It's a great help.

We used a ticket system. We made a chart showing what each chore or good behavior was worth in terms of the number of tickets. Then they could "buy" rewards with their tickets like an ice cream cone, a night at the movies, etc. It's special to them because they earned it, and you have the added feature of the threat of removing tickets for bad behavior. We just got some little plastic containers with lids from the dollar store and let the kids decorate them with stickers, which they had a blast with! And you can buy the rolls of tickets at walmart, I believe. It will probably get to the point that they will remind you about getting a ticket for the things that they do, and when they are naughty and automatically lose a ticket, there's no yelling or nagging required - just say, "I'm sorry I have to take one (or two or three, depending on what's going on) of your tickets now. Next time you'll do better." And I would just once a day remind my kids to check their chart and make sure they'd done all of their chores so they could earn their tickets. You might have to remind the younger ones more often, but your seven yr old should be able to handle that. Any way, that's my 2 cents.

I established a daily responsibility chart for my boys. Each of them have their own chart,even though all resposibilities are the same. If they take care of their daily jobs they get to stay up until 10pm., if not bed time is 9pm. Then on every Thurday we draw chores from a hat and those have to be completed by an agreed upon time or they get no video games for the weekend. The daily responsibilities are simple things like, brush your teeth, put clean clothes away, feed the dogs, ect... I would be glad to e-mail you the chart if you send my your e-mail address. The chart has taken the burden off of me having to ask 4 boys "did you brush your teeth? Are the dogs fed?" All I have to do now is say "check your list"!
Since it is inevitable that kid's are going to ask if they can go to the park, get icecream, play with thier friends, ect.. us as parent can really determine our answer on rather or not thier list has been attended to for that day!

T. H

B.,
I actually just bought some marbles to use as another mother suggested. Since they are reuseable, you don't have to worry about replacing them like stickers; but it is still a tangible visual aide. Your girls get to put a marble in the jar if you catch them being good, or obey right away; but they have to remove a marble if they disobey or fight, etc.

You can also use different jars for each girl if they need to be motivated by a differnt prize for filling the jar (like a date with mommy, or spending the night with a friend for your older ones). You could also use the same bigger jar for a combined prize (like going to a water park or out for pizza), and depend then on positive peer pressure to get it filled.

When I taught, I used a marble system. There were some standard things that when they happened (lining up quietly, cleaning up at the end of the day, etc.) would earn a marble (it was a group reward for the class). These marbles would go in a jar and when the jar was full, there would be some reward (popcorn party, ice cream party, etc.) Also, if there were specific things that came up, I would tell them they could earn a marble if... The class could also lose a marble by certain negative behaviors. For example, if it got noisy during class work time, I wouldn't even have to say anything, but tip the marble jar and the sound of the marble coming out was usually enough to catch everyone's attention and they would shush each other. You could easily adapt this for your home with rewarding certain behaviors and discouraging others. It could be a group or individual thing--each child could earn their own marbles and still put them in a community jar and have a group treat (this will help your kids encourage each other to do the right things). I started with a very small jar (a large baby food jar) for the first reward so that it happened within the first weeks of the system and they would be motivated, then slowly increased the size of the jar (and the "value" of the reward). Good luck!

Hi B.!

I think Mandy has an AWESOME idea! I'm going to try her idea myself as I need to start working on something different in terms of rewarding good behavior, and discouraging bad.
Thanks for asking this question. It's helped me too! And thank you to Mandy if you read this for your suggestion!

I burned out with my kids' sticker charts also. My sister-in-law pointed me to meckmom.com -- There are a lot of good ideas on her site for things like this. One thing she mentioned was having a sticker-system, but instead of making a chart, just cutting off a certain number of stickers, putting them on the inside of a cupboard (still on the sticker paper) and then giving the child one whenever they are "caught" doing something they should be doing. Each time the sticker paper is "emptied," they receive their reward. (She explains it a lot better than I do if you can find the correct link.) I am in the process of changing this with my kids because they'd say, for instance, that they wanted to earn a toy at the dollar store. Well, part-way through earning it they'd change their minds. I decide on the number of stickers they had to earn based on what they wanted, so that would mess everything up. Anyway, just so there's more flexibility, I'm going to keep putting the stickers up in strips of 6-9 and for every three,they can earn a coin or some other token that they can use toward whatever they want. Minor change, but it will be a bit more flexible. It's kind of nice, actually, to reward this way because it's a little bit random. They know that if they do ALL their jobs in the morning, they'll probably get a sticker, but they might get 2 if they do their jobs fast or don't complain, and sometimes I give another for being nice, or listening well, or remembering to turn off the light, etc. Whatever happens to be something we need to work on at the time. It kind of keeps them on their toes. Plus, with the coins, I'll be able to take one away if they are being really whiny one day or fighting a lot. Couldn't do that with the stickers really. I don't know if they have a specific reward system, but Love and Logic always has a lot of great ideas for getting kids to do things and understand the consequences of not doing them so they learn to be responsible, even if there is no chart or reward jar. Good luck! I am constantly changing my system. Maybe one day I'll find something that works so good it will be permanent!

Reward them. We get paid for doing our jobs and some get bonuses for doing extra good, so why not do the same for your kids? It can be anything from a hug& kiss, to stickers, movies passes, candy, control of the remote for 30 minutes, choosing desert for that night.