Sticker chart for dd2 but it's not working how I expected

[Miaou]

dd2 has always been the one to misbehave, but since ds was born we have had a few issues with lying and destroying things. After talking to her about it, we are fairly happy that she is ok in herself, although she needs a bit of emotional support at the moment (which she is getting). Hand in hand with this, though, we wanted to tackle the unacceptable behaviour so we have implemented a sticker chart for good behaviour.

There is a "happy box" and a "sad box" for each day, and they get stickers in the happy box for doing good things (getting ready for school in time, tidying up, playing nicely etc), or in the sad box for misbehaving (lying, continuing to annoy her sister after two warnings, etc). At the end of the day she gets to draw a smiley face/sad face according to how many stickers she has earned. If she gets more than 4 sad faces in a week she forfeits her ballet lesson. dd1 has a chart too because she didn't want to be left out!

Anyway - yesterday (day 2 of the chart system), after two warnings about annoying dd1 (this is a big problem as it escalates), she was given a sticker in the sad box. She was absolutely mortified. She removed herself from the situation (they were colouring a picture together) and sat on the settee and listened to a tape. After five minutes I asked her if she felt ready to go back and colour again with dd1, but she said no, as she was afraid she would get another sad sticker! And this morning, she presented me and dh with a card, beautifully drawn, which said inside "Dear mummy and daddey, I'm sorry about getting a sad stick (sic)Sorry I love you"

While I'm glad she's taking it seriously, I think she's taking it to extremes, I don't want her to be afraid to do things (eg trigger situations) and neither do I expect her to be still so remorseful the next day!!!

Any suggestions as to how I handle this?

And apologies, this is far too long, never was any good at summarising

Thanks Georgina, we could perhaps try that! I like the points idea too, gothicmama.

I have a little problem with DS not going to toilet and I introduced a money Jar (similar to pasta jar). I was doing it wrong and a MNer explained to me the concept of the pasta jar. I had put coins into a jar and each failure resulted in a loss of a coin. What I hadn't done was given him the opportunity to earn back the coins he had lost.

After the MNer explained the concept fully to me I told DS about earning the coins back and the next day he came home from school with clean pants and had used the toilet.

I have had success with star charts before but it wasn't working for this problem. ANyway must thank MNer.

miaou. sounds like she wants to be more involved with her older sibling. the drip drip things seem to be 'take notice of me - i'm here' messages. Maybe she's learnt that the way to get attentions from her sibling is to annoy her.

Also, whatever system you decide to use -sticker, smiley/sad, pasta jar etc, remember that all these tools are based on rewarding positive behaviour not punishing bad behaviour which defeats the system as attention is still based on negative rather than positive. To expect good behaviour may be asking a bit too much. Personally I believe that no children are 'bad' or naughty on purpose - it's just a means to an end. And that end is nearly always - ATTENTION - positive or negative attention, they don't care as long as they get attention