Positive Relationships: Rewards - Sticking points

The EYFS states that any group setting must have a named practitioner with the skills to support colleagues over the behaviour of young children, 'if ordinary methods are not effective with a particular child' (page 28 CH, Statutory Framework). The big question is - what approaches are ordinary methods?

Young children are best guided within the context of an affectionate and sustained relationship - the important EYFS strand of Positive Relationships. In an emotionally warm atmosphere, children would usually rather please than disappoint you.

They also feel reassured that although you dislike something they have just done, your liking for them as an individual does not waiver. It is important that familiar adults recognise behaviour that is welcome and show their appreciation to children. We should notice all the 'little things' close to the time, and in a personal way.

Encouragement is an approach in which adults (or children to each other) recognise by words and body language what someone has done, including effort and perseverance. You focus briefly on what the child has managed or the choice they have made. For instance, comments like, 'Thanks for being patient while I was busy with...' or 'That was a kind thought - to notice that Katie wanted to say something'.

Praise is also verbal acknowledgement, but the choice of words focuses more on the child as a 'patient boy' or a 'kind girl'. The drawback is that children can wonder if you will not like them when they have made a less than patient or less than kind choice.

Reward is a tangible acknowledgement of what children have done and involves handing over something that they want. When a future reward is promised, then it may operate as an incentive: 'if you... then'.

TANGIBLE REWARDS

Rewards might be a toy, sweets, money, or doing something special as a treat. Alternatively, the reward might be symbolic, like stickers or certificates - something that children can hold in their hands which represents approval from the adults.

There is nothing wrong with rewards or incentives, so long as they are used sparingly against a backdrop of mainly using encouragement, within a personal relationship with children. The problems arise when daily life is dominated by rewards, since children come to expect - not surprisingly - that they will be directly recompensed for different kinds of 'good' behaviour.

The same problems arise from enthusiastic use of symbolic rewards as those that follow from rewarding children with sweets. The only consequence you avoid by using smiley stickers and hand stamps is the dental decay.

Some sources even recommend an extensive use of charts, with associated stars and stickers, for the full range of ordinary behaviour from the age of one year onwards. Apart from the prospect of a daily life full of wall charts, such advice shows ignorance of how very young children make sense of their world.

Star charts, like the approach of time-out, were developed as additional strategies for children of at least four to five years of age, whose behaviour was genuinely challenging when the adult had reached an impasse. They are not ordinary methods.

THE PROBLEM WITH STICKERS

Primary schools have traditionally used symbolic rewards, such as awarding gold stars for 'good work'. Within the last couple of decades, this approach has spread in many schools to encompass a complex array of certificates for a wide range of wanted behaviours. This system has increasingly been recommended to adults responsible for children within early childhood. Early years practitioners can become convinced that using symbolic rewards is a wise strategy and within the sphere of ordinary methods for guiding behaviour.

Children will not refuse stickers, since clearly the adults believe these rewards are so valuable. However, children of primary school age are often hazy, especially by the end of the day, about how they earned the certificate that they are now showing to their parent. Younger children have even less understanding of what this sticker or hand stamp actually represents.

Buying sheets of stickers or pre-done certificates reduces your budget for more worthwhile purchases. But there is a more significant downside to embracing symbolic rewards.

Every time you use a sticker, you are effectively saying to a child, 'My pleasure and yours at what you managed when... is not enough. I need to give you something.'

You can produce a real smile at will, using all your facial muscles, which are poised for action. Why would you bother with a paper sheet of sticky smiles?

You have your words to say 'well done'; you do not need it on a hand stamp. Only you can be specific about what has pleased and impressed you, and express this to an individual child or small group.

Words, friendly body language, touch - all these forms of personal communication are instantly adjustable to the particular occasion. Why buy larger packs of stickers and ever glitzier, pre-done certificates claiming to cover a wider range of likely reasons to reward?

The more responsible advocates of symbolic rewards stress that they should be used alongside personal communication. My challenge is: if you are generous with individual appreciation, you can bin the stickers. However, I have also seen stickers promoted as the easy approach. So, will unreflective adults save time on communication by doling out stickers?

I have encountered many early years and school settings where practitioners and children have together created what they value as a visible showcase for good thinking, problem-solving or 'our interesting project about...'. The best use of sticky technology for individuals is to use blank labels as a personal reminder to say 'Ask me about...', to support communication between nursery/school and home.

EXTRINSIC OR INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Advocates of using symbolic rewards say that stickers and the like will improve children's behaviour, promote good attitudes and motivate them. But you have to ask - motivate children towards what? Motivation does not exist in itself as a vague, general 'good thing' to stimulate in children.

The emotion of feeling motivated is about a given direction. I have listened to thoughtful practitioners and teams in early years provision and primary schools, who have seriously cut back on stickers and certificates, often then to abandon them altogether. They have observed the pattern of motivation that is created when symbolic rewards take over adult interaction with children.

Once your emotional environment is well and truly stickered, children are motivated to earn the sticky smiles or add to their portfolio of pre-done certificates. Their familiar adults have successfully created a focus on extrinsic motivation. They have turned children towards valuing external factors: 'I behave well because I will be given something'. It is a short step for children to make their choices dependent on whether they can earn, or want, stickers.

Children increasingly ask, 'Will you give me a smiley face if I...?'. They have learned, 'Here I get paid for being good'. They may decide to opt out of tidy-up time, because they can live without getting a tidy-up sticker today. There will be another earning opportunity tomorrow.

Children may judge how 'good' they are on the basis of their cache of stickers and certificates. Parents sometimes make direct comparisons and then object to their child's limited array. Thoughtful practitioners do not label this fellow adult as a 'difficult parent'. Grown-up thinking makes them realise what their system of reward has unintentionally created. Some primary schools also recognise that symbolic rewards are often given disproportionately to the 'extremes' - to children who are outstanding in their work or behaviour, or to children who really struggle.

The unwise advice to give these teams is to create yet another layer of symbolic rewards to acknowledge the middle-of-the-road children. A wiser approach is to recognise the messy consequences of the existing system and rethink instead how adults can best show appreciation without reward.

The long-term plan is for children, even young ones, to become able to guide their own behaviour and make positive choices, without an adult always by their side. Boys and girls help out because 'that's what we all do here', and they relish being an active working member of their nursery, school class or the home of their childminder. They often (not always) make the pro-social choice to take turns, invite another child into their game or use their words rather than shove someone. They are fired up by intrinsic motivation, by sources of internal satisfaction: 'I enjoy doing a good job with laying the table' or 'We all feel better with a chance to show "sorry".'

MORE INFORMATION

Jennie Lindon (2009) Guiding the Behaviour of Children and Young People: Linking theory and practice 0-18 years. Hodder Education