Rewards and sticker chart systems have become hugely popular over recent years as a means for parents to encourage good behaviour from their children. Whilst such systems can certainly be effective in the short-term, the reward chart system teaches kids that the only point in being well-behaved or complying with our requests is that they will be rewarded for it.

Research shows that the external motivation provided by the reward becomes stronger than the internal motivation of simply behaving the way they should. This means that if you constantly reward your child for something now, you are effectively reducing the chance for them to repeat that behaviour again unless they are given yet more rewards as an incentive.They are essentially a way of ‘bribing’ our children to do as we ask and have no real influence over our child’s desire to make any long-lasting change to their behaviour. Because whilst they may comply with our requests in the short-term, once we remove the reward, the good behaviour disappears with it.

If you’d like to know how to praise your children to develop their self-esteem, you can read our article ‘10 best ways to praise your child‘.

These are just a few examples of our Best of Parenting Tools. You can find more ideas and solutions to typical parenting challenges in our book ‘Kids Don’t Come With a Manual – The Essential Guide to a Happy Family Life‘.