If you want to give a sticker when your child cleans his room or picks up toys, that can be OK. It’s a little work for you, but it means less fighting and more helping. Ask them to hand you the stray toys, so you can put them on the shelf, for instance. Rather than say ‘clean up your room,’ which can be overwhelming for small children, Silvers says, just help them get involved in the cleaning process. Set Small, Tangible Goalsīreak down the positive behaviors you want into specific pieces. Let the chart be just a way to keep track of your child’s progress. But let the reward be only the sticker itself-and the praise for doing whatever earned it (i.e., “Wow! Your teeth are so clean!”) Be sure to talk about why brushing teeth is so important-and don’t promise a big reward. If getting a sticker helps motivate your young child to brush his teeth, that’s OK. Focus on the Behavior (Instead of the Prize) Often, the kids will take the cue and do the same thing. Just announce, Time to take off my shoes so I don’t get mud all over the house. Every time (they’ll catch on eventually, we promise!). Instead of giving kids stickers for taking off their shoes when they come in from outside, for instance, make a big deal when you do it. Modeling the right behaviors can work wonders. So what’s a parent to do? Here are some things to remember, especially with children under 4: Model Good Habits Developmental psychologist Jennifer Silvers, who leads UCLA’s Social Affective Neuroscience & Development Lab, explained that stickers are OK if they make the child feel proud and motivate good behavior-but “not to make a big deal of it” because it can make a child overly focused on the tit-for-tat behavior/reward structure. Of course, there may be a time and place for sticker charts, especially if the reward is just the sticker itself (instead of some future prize). A child promised a treat for acting responsibly, for instance, “has been given every reason to stop doing so when there is no longer a reward to be gained,” writes Alfie Kohn, author of Beyond Discipline, in a blog post. In fact, studies have found that reward charts and similar “token economy” programs (like the sort used in schools, where kids get tokens for good behavior that they can trade in for prizes) rarely produce long-lasting changes in children. But will it make him choose peas the next time you put them on his plate? Probably not. Tell a kid he’ll get a lollipop after dinner if he eats all his peas, and he’ll probably eat the peas. Here’s the thing: Rewards work-at least in the short term. They’re creating a system to control the child’s behaviors.” She adds: “When a parent does a reward or sticker chart, they’re doing it based on what the parent wants and not what’s in the best interest of the child’s learning. It’s like dangling a carrot-the child said yes to the carrot but not the actual thing.” “We are securing the behavior but not the learning path that results in that behavior. “Getting the child to potty because they get a sticker is not the same thing as the child choosing the growth and independence of going on the potty,” says Abigail Wald, founder of Mother Flipping Awesome, an online support community designed to help parents of strong-willed children. Looking back, I realize the rewards are great for getting my kids to do things, but they don’t make my kids care about the things they do. Well, I’m here to tell you we did it all wrong.īecause now he’s 11, and if I ask him to do something- Can you watch your sister for a few minutes while I cook dinner? Can we work on your science fair project? Will you make your bed?-he’ll almost always ask, “What will you give me?” The points always led to a prize of some sort-a special outing, a toy, a sweet treat. As a fourth-grader, he’d get points for cleaning his room, doing his homework, paying attention in Zoom calls. In second grade, he’d get stars on a chart when he brushed his teeth or got ready for bed or showed extra kindness to his siblings. When he was 4, we would give him a nickel every time he said hello to people who said hi to him (this was hard for him). We had, of course, tried teaching him to use the potty without resorting to candy, but praise and encouragement just didn’t work for him, and M&Ms did the trick on the first try. Just shy of 3 years old with chunky legs and baby cheeks, he’d scramble off the toilet and run to us triumphantly, demanding, “Two M&Ms! Two M&Ms!”īecause that was the deal: If he went poop on the potty, he would get two M&Ms. Our foray into the reward system started when we were potty-training our son.
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