star charts

Currently we offer Michaela stamps as a bribe to get her to do things. She loves getting stamps so these are working really well.

For a couple of weeks we were having issues with her climbing into bed with me in the wee small hours but since she’s been getting a stamp every morning for sleeping in her own bed all night she stays there (most nights) and also, after she gets up for her bottle goes back to her bed to drink it there . The stamps worked so well that we started giving her stamps for other things like sitting still to get her hair done in the morning.

The stamps are brilliant for encouraging good behaviour. I love them and so does DH and Michaela but I now have two small issues.

1) If she rubs her face with the back of her hand the stamp smudges and with the purple/red/blue smudged ink across her eyelid she looks like she has a black eye
2) I think that it won’t be long before she figures out that if she climbs into my bed in the night but then sits still for having her hair done she’ll get a stamp anyway – therefore she can pick and choose what to be good for.

So I’m thinking of giving her 2 star charts, one for staying in bed and one for having her hair done - these are the two main things we need to encourage at the mo.

I’m curious to know how star charts have worked for other mums and dads especially those that started when their kids were as young as (or younger than) Michaela.

She loves the stamps so much that if we do start using star charts we’ll probably keep the stamps in use for exceptionally good behaviour and times that extreme bribery is required.

we do stamps on legs - you can have multiple ones.

RachandJack wrote: Jack still doesn't give a rats about any kind of bribe or treat Time out is our only option.

That works too! We were on a packed bus this afternoon and she started a tantrum so I threatened to get off the bus and make her stand against the wall of a building - that quitened her down (temporarily)

Our kids always got somewhat distressed when their sticker went on...a piece of paper, you gotta be kidding me mum! LOL Anyhow we bought a set of tiny little stickers (as in, 700 stickers for $5) and we put them on the back of their hands. Of course they fall off in time but they serve their purpose and they tend to forget about things well before the stickers fall off.

We have a kinda star chart for the girls but also serves a purpose for us, when they have a dry day a sticker gets put on their calendar - they now have the bedtime ritual of watching each other doing their stickers.

We have however just taken the side off Ayja's bed again after all the sagas of her mischief last year, and we have seen a neat bed that we want to get her which will cost a little bit of money really, so, to give us time to save for it, and also so that she earns it, i have made a star chart, with a big picture from the catalogue of the bed on the top, and made it 100 days long. Since then, that, coupled with the idea that if she gets up 1 time she gets the warning then the next the door gets closed.. it has worked well.

Really i would work on different rewards for different things and only decide to use them for the things you really battle on.

There are some things in life you just know that really they have to learn to do and others that are take or leave. For us, incentive to stay dry is up there as 1, it makes washing, and 2, for a while there paris got very silly with not wanting to leave her game her friends were playing in fear she'd miss something - so we were having 3 or 4 accidents a day just cos she left it too late or didn't even bother.   We brought the sticker thing back in for her and that has worked out well, now we really only have 1 - 2 accidents a month from her - which i think is kinda important considering she starts school in a few months and nothing is more embarassing than wetting pants at school i think.

Choose your battles. Use rewards for the big things. otherwise, as you said, she'll just think "oh yeah whatever, i don't have to do this cos i can get a stamp for that any way"