School using reward charts

[DisappointedOne]

I'll try and keep this short. DD is 4.5 and at a school nursery full time. She has been out of nappies for 2 years without problems.

Since February she's been wetting herself at school. Usually just a very tiny damp patch on her pants. Other times she's been completely soaked at the end of the day. It's taken a while but it seems there are 4 issues, all related to school (she had just 1 accident over the easter holidays).

Firstly she's terrified of toilet bugs. It doesn't matter how many times we tell her that washing her hands after going to the toilet kills the germs, she thinks she's going to get a bad tummy. (There was some stuff about her sucking her thumb which really upset her and I wonder whether that was used as some sort of incentive by her teacher.)

Secondly the nursery toilets are used by 30 3 and 4 year olds who have varying levels of control. By the end of the day they're in a terrible state, and DD would rather wet herself than have to use them.

Thirdly, DD thought that if she didn't drink anything, she wouldn't need to go to the toilet. Of course, that's not how it works, and her wee has been really concentrated by the end of the day and she's unable to hold it.

Finally, the structure of the afternoon means that there's no natural break for the children to go to the toilet, and the staff are very reluctant to prompt children to go. DD doesn't want to miss out so she's not going when she needs to.

Last week I spoke to her teacher and asked that she gently remind DD to drink water throughout the day and to go to the toilet. It happened for one day, DD came home dry, all was well.

Today she's come home with a reward chart - only because she was excited for us to see it. Had she not been bothered we'd be none the wiser. She gets stars for going to the toilet and at the end of the day can play with some particular toy that she loves. I'm seriously unhappy about it. I don't agree with reward charts, and am annoyed that the school have implemented one without even a mention to us. I saw her teacher this morning and she didn't say a word.

So, AIBU about this? Should I say something to the school?

It's going back a few years but I did support a Mum who was having similar issues to you with her DD. I was a HV at the time and I am racking my brains to remember what we did. I seem to recall meeting with the class teacher with the Mum and coming up with a plan of action to support her DD. It worked well and she wrote me a lovely letter about a year later to say her DD was now dry all day.

I live in the Valleys - I wonder if I'm in one of the 'not very pleasant' pockets where we're all practicing parenting in a fashion far inferior to yours, or if my little village passes muster?

It's a school, they have hundreds of children to manage, they can't do so in a way that aligns with every parents' parenting philosophy. If you don't like it, take her out and home educate, or move somewhere naice where there aren't hnpleasant pockets of Luddite parents using reward charts.

OP, do you think your DD is experiencing some generalised anxiety at school? I see that the fear of the bugs, not wanting to drink etc. are toileting issues but do you think she could be tense and a bit unsure about school in other ways which is impacting on her toileting normally?

She's definitely going through a phase - as are her peers including the homeschooled ones - of emotional development. She's a very bright and happy little girl who in many ways is older than her years. She seems to have clung to whatever it is they've said about bugs in the toilet. I can count on the fingers of 1 hand the number of times she's been sick in her life. So she has a bit of a fear of being sick because it's not a usual thing for her. We've all been reinforcing the message that washing hands gets rid of the bugs, but i don't know exactly how school have done that.

Are you anxious about school and how she is at school? Making a formal complaint about her being asked not to suck her thumb is a little extreme and you sound horrified by the toilets.

If you'd seen the state of DD when she tried to go to sleep without sucking her thumb you'd have understood. I took advice from other teachers before writing (and it was only addressed to that teacher, not the head so not as formal a complaint as it could have been) who all suggested that they'd prefer a letter so that they could consider their response. They were all shocked that something like that had been said repeatedly to DD and agreed that it was not an issue for the teacher to deal with single-handedly. Had the teacher been concerned she should have spoken to us, not DD. Anyway, that's all sorted now.

However much you might both be trying to supress it I wonder if you are feeding off one another's anxiety about 'going to school'.

I'm not anxious about school generally, and she isn't either, but they aren't brilliant at communication, which makes me a little uncomfortable at times. Eg, recently the nursery teacher is doing 2 days a week with a different class, and there's no teacher in DD's class on those days, and it will be an ongoing thing. I only found that out through the thumb-sucking issue. Nothing has been said to parents. DD had scarlet fever last November, and I notified the school who said they would write to parents. They didn't. 4 more children in her class came down with it, and because the parents didn't know to look for scarlet fever (which requires antibiotics) some dismissed it as a viral rash, thus delaying treatment.

I could be way off bean and the school is not a nurturing environment but nothing I've read makes me think they are doing anything unusual- could it be your perception of the setting?

The school generally seems lovely. I have a good relationship with the head and have helped the PTA to put in a few nice things since September (they're not a very motivated bunch). I think it's because nothing is forthcoming. On the open day I had to ask how they handled disagreements and squabbles (I have always let DD deal with it for herself) and they seemed quite surprised that anyone would be interested in that. I knew DD was fine with her close circle of friends for long periods of time, but throwing her into a class of mostly unknown children for 6.5 hours a day I wasn't sure what was going to happen!

I'm surprised how many of the parents don't seem to care and are just glad that they don't have to look after their children or pay for childcare anymore!

*I came on here to say your being ridiculous.

However after reading I think Yanbu actually. The chart has dealt with none of the issues raised. and actually should (as let's face it, it happens) the chart be forgotten about or she wets for a few days and then get a disheartened at no rewards then she will just give up.

They are pinning all the responsibility on the child and none on their conduct which has upset her, the lack of opportunity to go, and the state of the toilets.*

Thanks. That does seem to be a theme. They place a lot of store in children being independent.

People always seem to sat it's normal.for kids to wet at nursery pre school. to some extent that's true. But dd1 never did. dd2 did once and she's a complete scatter Brain. It's still happened at home just once or twice in the two years.

If she's wetting that much it's more than normal kid behaviour and it going to be solved with a few sodding stickers.

I'm all for encouraging independence but " right it's merely lunch time go wee and wash your hands" is standard practice surely?

With all due respect, if you don't like reward charts etc. then I would really recommend putting your daughter in to a private school or something. Big class sizes and special/specific treatment for each individual child is simply not feasible in a lot of state schools. Particularly if they are using a massively used technique to help your daughter, are getting results, yet you're not happy.

I was surprised that they'd implement something like that with no mention to me - I was chatting with the teacher that morning, it was implemented within an hour. I'm not sure how parents are supposed to magically know what methods of crowd control they use. When are you supposed to get told about that? I don't expect individual treatment. I'm prepared to see how the chart works - yesterday was day 1 so I'm not going to do anything yet. As someone else says, it doesn't tackle the causes.

There are no welsh medium private schools and at the moment the bilingualism is important.

I'm all for encouraging independence but " right it's merely lunch time go wee and wash your hands" is standard practice surely?

I would have thought so. It's what we do when we're out for the day with her close friends and they'll all happily use whatever toilets there are in any state in those circumstances - including DD!

I've read a lot of papers in my time, and I've read plenty of good psychological studies.

Those papers aren't, and if you're studying for a psychology degree, you might consider critiquing them as an exercise for your tutor or supervisor.

But more worryingly, I'm not even sure you, or the authors of the blog posting you cite, read one of the papers properly.

Warneken and Tomasello do a three-armed study on whether people continue picking up stuff the experimenter drops. There are substantial methodological issues that you might discuss with your tutor, and I would be nervous about placing much reliance on a very small scale, unblinded trial with obvious problems of subject selection (it's a joke in my field that almos all studies focus on second-year psychology undergraduates, because they're the easiest test subjects to find; I would guess this was done at a university creche, but it doesn't say)..

But the core is that they measure the willingness of children to perform an altruistic task for no reward when they have been previously conditioned by (a) being given a go on an attractive toy (b) being praised by the experimenter or (c) nothing, when performing a similar altruistic task. They find that children who have been previously given a go on the flashy toy are less willing to do the task for nothing that the other two groups. That's it. They don't find any significant different between groups (b) and (c), just that they both differ significantly (in statistical terms) from group (a). There is no significant difference between groups (b) and (c).

Do you believe that a sticker chart is a closer relation to being given an immediate go on an attractive toy as a reward, or to being praised by the experimenter? I'd say the latter, and the paper makes no findings whatsoever about whether altruism is undermined by praise.

After my experience with nail biting DD1 (now 14 still a nail biter) and constant thread worms up to age 10-11ish the sooner your DD stops putting her fingers/thumb in her mouth during school the better...
As to the reminding to go to the toilet - I think that is generally frowned upon now. When DD1 was at FT nursery (and younger) they would take the children to the loos en masse at regular times of the day. From what I know of preschool education in more recent years you aren't allowed to do that anymore...and if you offer a general reminder the whole class will want to go. And with 30 children -and I'd assume more than one staff member - you can't expect them to individually keep track of which DCs have been and when etc.
I think this 'reward chart' is intended as less of a reward and more of a reminder -I'm assuming she just gets a sticker not a special award ceremony. And I doubt it will be needed for long.
I would suggest reward charts etc do have their place -in education and in life. As others have said we all get rewarded for doing certain things - whether getting paid our salary or even a word of thanks or a smile especially from a loved one or just feeling good about ourselves.
As to reward culture - as others have said -this chart is not going to damage your DD for life...
And it does seem you have issues with losing total control of your DD...not everyone doing things exactly how you would. I'm sure that teacher has experience of working with many hundreds of children - and no doubt has been educated about children and development. I usually ask people like that for their advice rather than critise them.
The losing of control is either something you have to get used to or HE.
(It will only get worse - wait till she is a teen - and starting to want to make her own decisions ...)

OP I am totally with you on reward charts and wouldn't use one at home.

But she is not at home, she is at school, and it is motivating her for now. Of course it would be better to have intrinsic motivation, but honestly long term, it actually won't matter. Sometimes a bit of extrinsic motivation can be okay to form a habit or get over a hump, especially when the hump is something which isn't actually rational.

Give it a try. If it's upsetting her or not working, then rethink it. But if I have learned anything over the last couple of years it's that sometimes it's a really good idea to give things a try even when you really feel they are unhelpful.

if you're studying for a psychology degree

I'm not.

*OP I am totally with you on reward charts and wouldn't use one at home.

But she is not at home, she is at school, and it is motivating her for now. Of course it would be better to have intrinsic motivation, but honestly long term, it actually won't matter. Sometimes a bit of extrinsic motivation can be okay to form a habit or get over a hump, especially when the hump is something which isn't actually rational.

Give it a try. If it's upsetting her or not working, then rethink it. But if I have learned anything over the last couple of years it's that sometimes it's a really good idea to give things a try even when you really feel they are unhelpful.*

Thank you. That's what I'm doing.

And it does seem you have issues with losing total control of your DD...not everyone doing things exactly how you would. I'm sure that teacher has experience of working with many hundreds of children - and no doubt has been educated about children and development. I usually ask people like that for their advice rather than critise them.

It's not a control issue. I don't think that full time nursery is beneficial for children of DD's age. The council are trying to reduce it to part time, as it is in pretty much every other area in the UK. When you ask why people are so opposed to it, when research shows no benefit the response is "because we've always done it this way". When you ask why a non-faith schools have christian prayers and grace every day the answer is "because we've always done it this way". I was brought up to question such responses, because always having done it doesn't mean it's the best option. I don't expect them to manage each child individually, or make a special case, but I think people should be encouraged to ask "why?" about these things. They might still be the best option, but when was it last assessed?

I have to say I agree with namechange regarding the quality of the research. Have you just started your studies?

Also sorry to derail the thread but I got distracted by but 600 grass fires have been started by teenagers in the last week a few miles from my home

Really? 600 in one week all within a few miles. That's a lot of fires.

Wow just did a quick google and 49 grass fires were lit in just 12 hours. That's an extraordinary number ignore that tangent, sorry for the slight thread derail

It's the last 3 weeks, but yes.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/arsonists-start-more-six-hundred-9082791

Actually, both the papers are irrelevant, reading Fabes et al 1989 et al to the end, leaving aside their quality. They get children to do some sorting activity on the basis that's it's for poor sick children in hospital (the use of "poor" is fascinating: the past is another country, they do things differently there). They then correlate that with a questionnaire given to the mothers (again, the past, etc: presumably fathers didn't do any parenting in 1989) about attitudes to rewards, and another questionnaire in which mothers (ditto) self-rate their child for social skills. To paraphrase various people, every time I read the words self-evaluation questionnaire I reach for my red pen, but anyway: it was published in a decent journal, so let's assume that in 1989 this sort of stuff was best practice.

Unfortunately for the reliance placed on it, it's irrelevant to the OP's issue, as is the other paper.

It's reasonable to assume that the OP's daughter doesn't want to wet herself, and doesn't want to come home in wet pants smelling of urine. The issue is getting her to modify her short-term behaviours (specifically, going to the lavatory) such that she is dry. The end state is not altruism but self-interest (not being wet, not being humiliated).

That's different to both the studies, in which the research question is about altruism. What's the read-across from "do rewards affect people's motivation to perform acts that are otherwise of no benefit to them?" to "do rewards for immediate behaviours help people achieve long-term goals?" There might be a read-across, there might not be. Someone should do some research, rather than citation-mining in the hope that people don't read the references (laying hands on Fabes et al, in particular, requires access to a university library or similar, and was moderately tedious to find).

I'll quote ChronicallyInflexible's summary of reward charts again. It fits my own view of conditioning.

*I'd just like to point out that there is a difference between a reward chart and the other types of rewards used in schools (stickers, certificates, team points etc).

A reward chart aims to reward every instance of a behaviour occurring. The child knows that if they do x (use the toilet) they will get y (sticker on the chart). There is a danger (as stated in the article) that the child will only do x in order to get y, and when y is withdrawn, they will no longer do x.

The other types of rewards are given intermittently. So when the child does x, they don't know for sure that they will get y. They will probably have to do x several times before y happens. So while they might begin by doing x just to try and get y, the fact that they have done x several times before y happens means that x can become rewarding in its own right. Or for a child that has been 'gentle parented' and x is already the reward, y is a bonus and doesn't undo the gentle parenting. If the child doesn't get y, they're not going to abandon x.

This kind of intermittent reward schedule is very effective- it's like gambling. You don't know when the jackpot will occur so you don't give up just because you haven't had one in a while. And the activity in itself does become rewarding.*

Did they find a load of reward charts at the arsonists home?

sorry couldn't resist

Anyway, this thread has been useful as I didn't know that reward charts were common place at schools. I'm still unhappy that there was no mention of it when there was plenty of opportunity, but will see how it goes.

YABU. I live in South Wales and my 3 DDs are now in their 20's. We used reward charts when they were children and they also had rewards and merits at school. In fact in year 7 and 8 they earned merits for various things and then could spend them at the school shop. It helped them to be motivated. They do not now expect everyone to give them a bonus or an award for doing things and neither do their friends.

I'm still unhappy that there was no mention of it

They probably didn't tell you which brand of pencil they use, or whether they generally go clockwise or anti-clockwise around the group in circle time. For the vast majority of people, including many who are "studying psychology" (you seem suddenly coy about what form that study takes), the use of sticker charts is not a pressing, or either trivial, issue.

Not coy at all. I'm doing a level 2 psychology module with the OU as part of an open degree.

Oh, and by the way, is

This kind of intermittent reward schedule is very effective- it's like gambling. You don't know when the jackpot will occur so you don't give up just because you haven't had one in a while.

meant to be an argument as to why it's a good thing? You should try that argument in public and see how it sounds. "I think children should be raised using the positive model of fixed odds betting terminals".

I don't think it's comparable to brands of pencils. As someone else said, they're putting the onus for fixing the "problem" on DD, without, it seems, addressing the other issues.