Talk to me about sticker / reward charts please!

[Mrsfrumble]

Do you use them? How old are your children? What sort of things do you reward? Are there any arguments against them?

DS is 3, and has his eye on a large and quite expensive toy garbage truck. There are some aspects of his behaviour we'd like to improve, such as teeth cleaning and hand washing without a fuss, remembering please and thank you etc. it seems like a good opportunity to encourage him to 'earn' the truck. What worries me is that he's pretty hopeless at thinking 'long term' (as are many 3 year olds I expect). Would a sticker chart with an incentive help him, or just set him up for failure? Is it too much like bribery?

As you can see, I pretty clueless (he's my PFB, can you tell?), so any views or stories welcome. Thanks!

We did a sticker chart for our ds who must have been nearly three when he started asking us to feed him all the time. To help him see the long term goal we printed a picture out of what he wanted and stuck it in the last box. I think we also put another picture of something really small halfway through as a more immediate reward. We've got another chart on the go at the mo as ds would love to go to truckfest at the beginning of may. Working remarkably well so far. Good luck.

We use one with our DD who has just turned 3. We don't use it all the time but if we want to achieve specific things. So we have it at the moment and she needs to stay quiet before her sun comes up, take herself to the toilet by herself in the morning and say 'Please can' instead of 'I want'. Once she has 10 stars she gets to have a big ice cream treat.
I see it as helping her to build good habits and once they're established we get rid of the chart for a while.
If you're worried about bribery maybe think about the level of reward he is working towards.

Thank you, ZimboMum and Bananapickle, those replies are very helpful I was worried that I was going to be told that 3 was way too young or something.

One more question: did you use a template from a website or book, or did you just make your own chart up? Thanks!

I used them when my daughter was little but not for a reward as such. We'd have a creative session where she'd make a background eg under the sea. The reward would then be the stickers themselves eg stickers of fish, so she could build up her picture.

The chart was only ever used for 1 clearly defined behaviour at a time. eg clean teeth with arguing and once that was sorted move onto something else.

I used them when my daughter was little but not for a reward as such. We'd have a creative session where she'd make a background eg under the sea. The reward would then be the stickers themselves eg stickers of fish, so she could build up her picture.

The chart was only ever used for 1 clearly defined behaviour at a time. eg clean teeth with arguing and once that was sorted move onto something else.

I made one with her initially and she really enjoyed it and I think she felt some ownership of it. The we moved and it got damaged. I then thought I needed to use a chart again and wsaw one when we were shopping but I asked her if she liked it and she was very excited.
I think it's good to involve them whether it's homemade or shop bought.