How to Make a Reward Chart for Your Child

Easy Reward Chart

For whatever behavior you are trying to modify in your child, a reward chart can create an incentive.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Stickers
• Printer

Instructions

1. Think about how many spaces you want in your reward chart. For our daughter, we created one that had 25 slots, so that the reward came not after every good behavior, but after several days of good behavior. The sticker in itself was a reward for good behavior, and once the chart was full, there was an extra reward for having filled it.

2. Open up your word program. Make a title for your reward chart and center it at the top of the page.

3. Click on the "table" on the toolbar. Enter how many columns and how many rows you want, depending on how you want your chart to look. Leave it on auto format and click OK.

4. Make your boxes larger by either clicking and dragging at the corners of the boxes, or you can simply click inside a row and hit the enter button until it is extended to your desired size.

5. Decide on the layout. Depending on how you arranged your columns, you may want to change your page layout to landscape before printing. To do this, click on File in your toolbar and go down to "page layout" where you will select landscape as your desired layout.

6. Print the chart.

7. Use the chart. Once your chart is complete, your child can place a sticker in a box when you want to reward them for a certain behavior. Once the whole chart is full, it is time to claim a new reward.

8. Think about the kind of rewards you want to give. Rewards don't have to be big items. We helped our daughter make a list of things she enjoys doing. Her rewards include things like "go to the park" and "go out for ice cream." These are not costly or extravagant. the idea is simply to let the child learn that good behavior will result in something good. When her chart is full, she gets to choose one from the list and we do it within one to two days, cross it off the list and start a new chart.

9. Think about the best way to utilize this system. Rewards don't have to be for general good behavior. Charts like these come in most handy when trying to establish a routine or curb an unwanted behavior. We used to have trouble getting our kid through a morning routine, which made us late all the time. We started setting a timer and "challenging" her to brush her teeth and get dressed before it went off. If she succeeded, she got a sticker. Every morning for a month she earned her sticker and we got out of the house on time. And when the chart was full, we went for ice cream. Now she gets ready without the chart, but we are using the reward system in the same way to get her to bed on time without any fuss.

10. Draw it yourself. The reward chart can be drawn by hand with a pen or marker without having to use the computer at all.

Tips & Warnings

• You can make your chart for a specific behavior or for general behavior, just explain to your child how the chart works so that he understands what is expected of him and what he will get in return.