Are rewards/ stickers a waste of time?

[PastSellByDate]

Hello there. On another thread on primary talk (see www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1383278-5-Year-old-concentration) mrz and Indigo have both been very anti using stickers or reward schemes for behaviour.

So this makes me wonder - Are school assemblies and children getting rewards now considered a waste of time by teachers?

As a parent, I find it incredibly difficult when I've been given next to no notice that my DDs are going to receive a teacher's award and have to drop everything at work so I can attend an assembly in the middle of my morning or afternoon? My kids are devastated when I say that I just can't possibly make it to an assembly because of work.

I know that my girls absolutely adore winning these prizes and get a great deal of pride from it. I hadn't considered that teachers (like mrz) would consider rewards useless - what do other teachers and parents think?

Haven't read the other thread, but stickers kept my bright but totally dotty ds2 on the rails during KS1. Every sticker he came home wearing was peeled off and stuck in a book. He loved looking through it at bedtime, and seeing how many he had collected each term - it helped him to remember that he could do well on bad days, and gave him a sense of satisfaction on good days.

Glad I didn't have to attend random assemblies to see him presented with other awards though - or to hear about how other kids kept on getting awards. IME lots of stickers for everyone worked well - and the good teachers were always able to find things to reward people for - everyone, even the most disaffected pupils are good at something. (Our school had a long corridor with lots of fire doors. The kids were brilliant at holding the doors open for visitors!)

Actually PastSellByDate I frequently give rewards but they are immediate so that the child knows why they are getting a certificate or sticker, book, pencil .... They don't have to fill a chart or wait until the appropriate assembly they get an instant acknowledgement of their success

My dd school went overboard and also didn't give instantly so you the value that they once had went downhill very quickly.

Thanks for comments.

Really interesting mrz that you're now saying that you do give rewards - but prefer it at the time.

I agree NotQuiteGrownUp that stickers can really make a child's day - we also have 'the door of stickers' which is covered with anything and everything - even the stickers from the dentist.

DS's nursery (preschool) seem to hand out stickers a lot, it seems to work well there. They are immediate, they are always told why they are getting them and from what I saw on the first day when I stayed with him and what DS tells me, they are used in a subtle way to highlight to other children "I would like you to do this, like this child" without obviously singling anyone out. The goals seemed to be easily reachable as well and it was always explained to the children what they needed to do in order to get the sticker in a very simple way. They were used in front of other children for things like sitting nicely, putting rubbish in a bin, putting hands up etc, so simple skills which will be within a NT child's reach, and privately for individual achievements, like DS said he got one because he went to the toilet and tried to do a wee even though he didn't do one (I had highlighted this as a particular worry as he was not very reliable). I'm not sure as they get older if they get them for things like counting or letters, so far DS hasn't had any for this type of thing even though I know he is good with letters - I'd be a bit iffy about this TBH because I don't think it's fair if some children are more ahead than others.

I'm not sure how effective they are as children get older and more aware but they seem to work really well in this setting, and even though it's not something I'd want to use at home I do support the use of them in the nursery class.

Kidd you raise a good point - if everybody gets a sticker for anything - then that kind of reduces the value of being awarded a sticker.

PastSellByDate perhaps if you read what I actually said on the other thread you would have realised that my comments referred to that situation and not unilaterally.

Thanks BertiBotts:

I think you raise some good points. Also agree that at some stage getting a sticker saying 'AWESOME' or 'GREAT JOB' probably will seem deeply uncool. My eldest DD is in Y4 - and she still adores her stickers but maybe by Y5/ Y6 they aren't such a big deal.

I frequently get visits from Y6 (very macho boys) looking for certificates /rewards for being helpful/good work /manners

We have a tick system in my class- children get a tick next to their name on a laminated board for helpful tidying, thinking of others, it is noticed straight away and added to chart.

Not sure what the prize will be at the end...none of the children have asked as getting a tick seems prize enough atm!

Thanks mrz

Yes you quite specifically said reward charts rarely effect solution [to behavioural problems] - however (and this may be our school's error) awards/ stickers are presented to parents at our primary as part of encouraging good behaviour (as individuals, members of the school and as students).

The child on the other thread is 5 years old with a problem concentrating (according to the school) and they want to use a reward chart for a full half term ... age of the child coupled with length of time ineffective practice

Out of interest I realise I've upset you on another thread for which I've apologised and explained why I disagreed with your advice ...so are you going to start threads about everything I say?

Both my dds have responded well to school giving out stickers - especially when its the Head who gives them out. They do also get certificates, given out at Assembly - and dd2 certainly finds those a source of enormous pride (she's in Reception, mind).

I do recall dd1 being utterly disinterested for a while in KS1, and now in Y3 they have a system of winning 'raffle tickets' for good work/behaviour, and there is a mini raffle (winning pencils etc) at the end of the week. They love it. Last term they had a different system, and no doubt it will be changed again next term - also, interestingly, they seem as thrilled by others winning as they do by their own achievements. I like that

The issue is how they are used. If they are used as motivators or as behavior management tool then the child does not learn self motivation or self respect.

I ran a session with some year 2 kids the other week that highlights this issue. A girl called 'Bethan' was literally in my face the whole session. She wasn't engaged in the learning, was showing off, was not working as part of a team or respecting the others around her. Yes, every answer she gave was 'right' (and from the outside probably looked great) but she was NOT engaged in the work. At the end all the children left proud of what we had achieved (saving animals from a flood is no easy task) but Bethan walked straight up to me and demanded a sticker because she had done 'good work'. She was mortified when I explained that I didn't give out stickers so she sulked and actually renegotiated with the TA her 'reward'. She wasn't satisfied with a pleasure and happiness from self. What a dangerous thing for a young girl to learn? That reward comes in the form of a material object or an emotional stroke. Aha, that's why she wasn't truly engaged because it was all about the sticker. Will she remember the session? probably not!

Often at the end of a session the teacher will ask me to pick one child that has done 'really good work'. What a ridiculous thing to ask. You see the children suddenly sit up. In the past, I unfortunately felt pressured to do so and noted the immediate upset of all the other children who were told, by the message given out, that their work was not 'good'. They don't remember the learning adventure we have been on just that they didn't get picked. Great of your child is the one always getting the stickers, or so it seems. I stopped this in its tracks and went away and read up about it.

It is harder to motivate children without a reward system but hey, its harder so I best get on it and work that little bit harder to really engage them in what I am doing. I have seen teachers wave stickers in front of classes saying "now who is going to behave and get a sticker'. well let me work hard to make my sessions that have pace, are engaging, purposeful and relevant so that reward, passion, motivation is created so that the children become curious, independent learners rather than passive or, worse, only participating for reward like poor little Bethan. She missed out. Whilst the rest of us were busy exploring the rainforest she was busy trying to second guess what I would think was 'good work'.

Don't get me wrong stickers are fun, but in the classroom? sorry but they are lazy, short term answers.
Read Alfie Kohn/Ian Gilbert.

Ah see ebramley that's why I don't like them either. It's a hard one. I would like to think that at DS's nursery they are giving them out in the first few weeks as a quick shortcut to gain the attention of all the children in a new and unfamiliar environment in order to teach them the skills which they have perhaps not needed before, but somehow I suspect that they will continue to be used throughout the year...

My DD loves getting a sticker and was chuffed when she got a wow sticker in assembly. I would imagine they are just one tool used for behavioural management alongside many other strategies in a good teachers classroom but overuse would teach a child to learn to get a sticker rather than any self motivation.

ebramley I totally agree with you! I think DS's school over-uses stickers - he came home with nine the other day and didn't really know what any of them were for. I never used them when he was a toddler (having read Kohn), but a couple of months ago I was exhausted and resorted to a star chart to earn a much-desired Tomica vehicle by going seven nights without waking me, and suddenly I was bombarded with 'Was that good? Do I get a star? Is there a prize??' for every tiny little thing he did and he really did lose sight of the inherent value of what he was doing. Thankfully this mindset didn't last long, but the difference was dramatic and I felt totally vindicated in my original no-star-charts stance and won't be using one again!

I think that they can motivate them, but sometimes quieter children can be overlooked. Dd1 often was queen for day, but dd2 who tends to do her own thing more isn't, even though there are fewer girls in her class so should be more often just by chance. Her teacher often tells me how pleased she is with her but doesn't translate for dd into the reward she wants.

As an aside, at home have had lots of sucess with lego and marble token economy. Dd not so good on the hygine side. She now gets a marble each time she brushes her teeth, uses mouthrinse etc. She can either save them up or spend them in my lego shop where one marble buys her a 1x2 piece of (secondhand) lego. She loves the complexity but you could just buy a lego kit and give one piece for each completed task until they finish the model.

Just quickly checked to see what was posted.

ebramley

Really interesting post. You made some great points - and I can see that if the sticker becomes the object - rather than the learning/ work/ behaviour - how that can be a huge problem.

thanks for commenting.

3duracellbunnies - you raise a good point - the quiet ones may well be overlooked in such a system.

Is the consensus view that stickers can't be awarded too frequently

They need to be rewarded for something of value: learning/ effort/ behaviour/ etc...

and they shouldn't be awarded over long periods to attain a certain amount for a reward, at least with very young children (is that right mrz?)

Thanks everybody - I've found this hugely interesting - and it's really made me think this whole thing through.

3duracellbunnies. I think children quickly see through that kind of system and learn that those kinds of rewards are for making the disruptive children behave better. My DD hasn't got to that stage yet, but I know of older children (just 7 or 8) who have worked that out.

I'm not a big fan of extrinsic reward systems, but, as with spiderlight's experience, there are times when they are useful. We've used them to stop DD calling out in the night too (not from nightmares but just for a conversation!).

But why we did it - and I'd love to hear anyone else's take on this - is because it seems to me this is a situation where there are lots of benefits for DD in calling out (attention etc) but no benefit to not doing it as she's not mature enough to connect the behaviour with the downside of having the most fantastically grumpy parents the next day. So a star chart for very specific and positive results, gives her a motivation to change.

My DS who is 5 is totally unmotivated by stickers - they really mean nothing at all to him and will peel them off and give them to other children. Star charts etc don't interest him either

Ds (5) is totally motivated by a sticker chart, it helps to encourage him to do certain things and for us at least it has been a useful tool, not for everyone I know but for us it has been beneficial. He's in YR and when he first started in September he was coming home with various stickers attached to him daily, he knew what everyone was for, he has also kept them and sticks them alongside his own sticker chart, what works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another, it's what works well for you that matters.

Depends on what the sticker is being awarded for.

For example, head teacher has taken to giving an on the spot award for the best behaved and quiet child sat in award assembly.

This has been translated by some manipulative girls as sitting bolt upright, arms folded and smug look on face - and the head teacher rewards this.

The fact the the less manipulative girls and boys who have sat naturally and have been just as well behaved seems to always be over looked.

Not a good use of the rewards system.

Manipulative and smug? Really? That makes me feel quite sad :( I was probably one of those girls, not doing it to be manipulative, I just genuinely wanted to please the teachers, if they asked us to do something I'd do the absolute best I could.

Unfortunately you're probably right that overly trying to please isn't a great thing, got me into some bad situations as a teen/adult, but IMO it's what the rewards culture gets you - whether the rewards are stickers or praise really.