Reward Charts

Reward charts can be a positive and visual way to praise good behaviour.

Children as young as 2 can understand the benefits of reward charts, but they are more common aged 3-4 and older. A reward chart can be very simple and if using from a young age it is recommended to just have one clear goal for your child to achieve.

This could be anything from potty training or helping them go to bed at night.

Talk through the goal and how they can receive each sticker or tick and then also discuss what their reward will be if they collect x number of stickers. For example, if you are potty training your little one, you could give them one sticker each time they do a wee in the potty or toilet and two stickers for a poo – then when they collect 12 stickers they get a new toy or something of their choice.

You could also introduce smaller rewards as they progress through the chart to try and keep their interest and encourage them to continue – this is quite a good idea for something like potty training as they can collect quite a few stickers in one day, but that doesn’t mean they will be potty trained after they do 5 wees in a potty.

Rewards Talk through the rewards with your child to try and work out what they would like and what would keep their interest.

Try not to use food as a reward as this could lead to negative food association later on, instead you could offer more one-on-one play time together or an extra story at bedtime with the final prize being a toy of their choice. Once they have completed a reward chart and become more comfortable with that new learnt behaviour, you could continue with the reward chart but make the goal a little harder. So taking the idea of potty training, after they have completed the first chart they could try and stay dry for a week and then after two days they receive a little incentive to keep them going. As your child gets older you could have multiple goals on one reward chart.

This could be linked to their morning or bedtime routine and could include things like: Getting dressed Having breakfast Cleaning teeth Making their bed There are plenty of free templates available online that you can use or why not try making one, that way it is completely personal to your child.

Sources: https://www.mymind.org.uk/media/1499/mysleep-reward-charts.pdf

Reward charts can be a positive and visual way to praise good behaviour.

Children as young as 2 can understand the benefits of...