How many star charts is too many? Do your children have star charts at home and school? And what do you give them for stars?

[Nightynight]

I started star charts recently, to help my children achieve things like going to bed at the right time, all homework to be finished by 7pm, etc.
Ds1 has got 2 star charts already at the school!! I am a bit miffed that the school jumped in first with 2 charts, as they only have him 5 hours a day, and we have him the remaining 19, and he is a bit charted out at the moment.

Is it normal for primary school age children to have star charts at school?

And what do you give as rewards for stars for the home chart?
I dont want to get into heavy rewards, basically for doing what they should be doing anyway! I am trying the "its the satisfaction of getting the stars that counts" line, but not sure how long that will work for.

Hi. Have just started start charts (or smiley faces on ours) for my dc, aged 6 and 4.5.

Am a single mum and felt I really needed to get to grips with their behaviour. They are basically good children but they get very little or no discipline when they visit their dad every other weekend and when they return it takes me about 3/4 days to get them back on track. Its every day things that we all nag about, nice table manners, getting dressed for school independently not constantly bickering with each other.

I wrote some house rules for them and am quite stingey with giving out the smiley face stickers otherwise I felt that it would not have the right impact. I have told them that once they get 10 smiley faces they can have a small treat, and by that I mean small, i.e an ice cream, packet of sweets or to do a favourite activity.

I did get a bit despondent because although dd seemed really enthusiastic (she is 6), ds who is 4.5 didn't appear to give a fig whether he got any or not. However I persevered and they are now doing quite well and getting quite competitive about who has the most stickers (which is fine as long as it doesn't degenerate into one of their arguments).

I was, am still am at times, very guilty of reprimanding bad behaviour and not praising good behaviour. Now that I have made a conscious effort to praise good behaviour it really does seem to be making a difference.

Hope you get on ok with your star charts.

By the way, I haven't heard of star charts at school, and perhaps you are right that you need to be careful with not over doing it. Maybe think of a variation on the theme for use at home but which has the same effect.

I am also a single mother, and have the same sort of problems as you, by the sound of it!

I have stressed that treats will be small. Problem is, they have had rather a lot of treats recently. I think I may wind the treats slowly down over the next few months.
We are just due to go to the oktoberfest next week, which is one of the biggest treats of the year, so cant start just yet!

Yes agree, that it needs to be the right time to start, maybe when you get back. Have a great time

thank you. well, the children will anyway. fortunately, it is a public holiday the following day, so they will be able to recover.

Nightnight - where are you to have a public holiday tommorow?
My DC have stars instead of pocket moeny, so works as carrot & stick. They do not have physical charts ( as they lose them as often as gain them - would get messy!). They are both now very motivated by them and as they are 'virtual' rather than physical, it helps their mental arithmetic.
efectively, each 'star is worth 10p - redeemable when they have enough to buy a toy. Allocation is fairly arbitrary, but if they do something that is helpful, eg trnn lights off when we leave the house in the morning, 'post' their clothes in laundry basket, put empty milk carton in bin etc they get a star.
It works wonderfully!

thats a good idea. ds said that one of his classmates gets 50 cts a day pocket money, dependent on the days start chart.

but they do like to save up for toys, so 10 cts a star sounds good. Will think it over.

we are in teh public holiday capital of europe - bavaria. Wednesday is the Day of German Unity.

I've always used star charts..ds's now 6&7 and school also used them in reception. Didn't find this a problem really, it just reinforced the idea. DS2 has one at the moment for sleeping through the night in his own bed ( he's a bit of a midnight wanderer!) so we did 1 week, then 2 and now we're on 4 weeks, the last one, in which he's aiming for a new bedtime cuddly!