Printable sticker charts can be a wonderful way to work on your child’s behavior one skill at a time! For example, if your child is struggling with sharing their toys, you could use a reward chart to work on this particular behavior. If they share a toy, they get a sticker! When they fill up their behavior chart, they get a pre-selected prize.
It is a wonderful, visual way to help your child understand the expectations & allow them to be an active participant in the process of improving their behavior.
For more on this topic, check out the full All About Toddlers, Child Behavior, and Free Printables collections
Below are 8 different designs for printable sticker charts that you can print out for free! Then be sure to continue reading below for insight into how to best implement behavior charts in your own home.
How to Use Printable Sticker Charts
Now that you’ve downloaded your own reward charts, how do you use them? The short answer is that you can use behavior charts for any behavior that your child seems to be struggling with currently!
Focus on One Behavior at a Time
The keys to using reward charts successfully is focusing on one behavior at a time. We want to narrow in on a specific area that your child clearly understands instead of being too broad and overwhelming.
A sticker chart for “being good” is way too vague for a child. They will get frustrated quickly when it seems so difficult to earn stickers.
A sticker chart for putting away toys is much more manageable and clear. You can set realistic expectations around how many toys your child should put away and how much you’ll help them based on their age and level of development.
But the goal is to keep things simple!
Keep Things Positive
Keeping rewards system positive is also extremely important! It can be tempting to take away points for negative behaviors, but this method often causes children to give up entirely.
Imagine earning a hard-earned paycheck only to have some of it taken back the following week because you made a mistake… You’d be downright angry!
Sure, a sticker is not quite the same as a paycheck; but… it is amazing how important it feels to children to be making progress.
We want to frame reward systems positively, and we want to maintain that positive approach to behavior management.
Let’s go back to our toy example… Your child can earn 1 sticker for their reward chart for every 5 toys they put away without complaining. If they put away 10 toys, they get 2 stickers. If they put away less than 5 toys, then get 0 stickers. If they put away 5 toys but whine the whole time, they get 0 stickers.
But! Under no circumstance do they lose stickers off of their behavior chart.
They keep what they’ve earned – fair and square. And they begin to learn that they are responsible for their own progress!
Looking for more parenting advice?
Our goal at Adore Them is to provide personal stories and resources in the hopes that it will make your own parenting journey more enjoyable! We fully understand that there are (many) difficult moments that occur while raising a family, but we also believe in taking a proactive approach. How can we troubleshoot the areas where we are struggling the most? How can we better understand our children so that we can get back to genuinely enjoying them?
Check out the following parenting articles for more insight
Child Discipline and The Lessons I Have Learned
Helpful Reminders to Set Expectations
A List of Appropriate Chores by Age to Encourage Responsibility
And much more in the full Child Behavior, All About Toddlers, and the Free Printables collections