Improving Your Child’s Behaviour With Sticker Charts

I am managing my young child’s behaviour using sticker charts. It’s a great incentive for them to behave and establishes a routine for them to follow. Her improvement has been wonderful all round.

It was time to sit down with my daughter and explain what the chart was all about in detail. For each day she is good with no arguments and her chores complete she gets a gold star which she sticks into the day box for that particular day. If she argues once or fails to do her chores she would get a silver star to stick on. If she argues more than once – regardless of whether she cleaned or not she receives no star – instead I draw a big sad face with a red marker pen.

On Sunday I tally them up with her and the rest of the family. This is where the special stickers come in. I let her choose the special stickers so they would mean a great deal to her. Scratch and sniff stickers if you can find them are a great incentive as are glow in the dark stickers, stickers of her favourite cartoon or story characters and so on.

Out of the seven days of the week, if she gets a frown there is no special sticker at the end of the week but she has a chance to redeem herself by getting no more frowns for the rest of the week which will get her a silver star in her results box. If she doesn’t redeem herself and keeps receiving frowns in her day boxes she will get a frown in her results box.If she has no frowns marked in a day box she will get a special sticker to place in the results box. This is a great treat for her – the coveted ‘special sticker’. All very exciting! On the other hand if she gets all gold stars for the whole week she not only gets a special sticker to put in the results box but also a gold star next to it which means she gets a small treat! The treats I allow are between small toys or picking a desert to have the following night and she chooses pretty equally between the two.