Reward charts: making them work for you

If you make an effort to notice when your child is behaving well, you keep the focus on encouraging good behaviour. For example, your child might be hitting about once a day. You could try looking for two times in the day when your child is keeping their hands to themselves, and give your child stickers for those two times on the reward chart. Remember to reward the behaviour as soon as you see it to keep your child motivated.

Thinking about how much behaviour change to expect can help you and your child stay positive and realistic. You might look for small changes to reward before working your way up to a big change. For example, if you want your child to help more with tidying up, you could start by rewarding your child for picking up the blocks. Then it could be the blocks and the dress-ups, and so on.

Your child might get bored with the same reward. To avoid this, you could work together to set up a reward ‘menu’ with a choice of rewards to spend the stickers on. For example, 5 stickers = a game with mum or extra time before lights out, 10 stickers = a trip to the park or a small toy.