- Try your best to take notice of any good behaviors. Even the small ones.
- Show your child that you are confident that they will behave well and achieve the results they want.
- You don’t need to wait for the perfect behavior to happen to praise your children.
- Catch your child being “good” as often as you can.
- Drawing the attention of family and friends to the chart, can also be a good way to reward children, and acknowledge their improved behavior. This will work better when younger children are involved.
- Watching for how often your child is well behaved can encourage you too. It also gets you into the habit of recognizing when your child behaves well.
- Make earning a sticker easy in the first instance. Allow your kids to experience the fun in using reward charts. Make the targets harder over time. For example, it may be that you reward sitting on the potty initially rather than actually using the potty.
- If the chart seems to stop working, re-think the targets that have been set.
- When setting the targets for the reward charts, particularly for older children, it’s important to consider that the behavior you are rewarding is your child’s interest, their participation and the effort they put in. Often it’s not helpful to focus on their performance, their talent or their ability.
- Keep promises. When you follow through on your promises, good or bad, your child learns to trust and respect you.
- If you find the reward chart isn’t working effectively for you and your child, you may need to reexamine and make adjustments to the way you are using it. You need to ensure that it maintains the interest of your child.
