The behavior chart that actually worked

Not perfect. Not Pinterest-worthy. But this is what worked for our real, messy, daily life.

Recently on Instagram, I mentioned that we use a behavior reward chart for our three kids (ages 4, 6, and 7) and several people messaged me and asked me to share more about our system.

We have tried many different systems, but this is the one that has worked for us for over a month now.

I took inspiration from my kids kindergarten classroom behavior chart (it’s not my original idea) because my kindergartener would come home every day and tell me where she landed on the chart that day.

I found myself struggling to enforce natural consequences for poor behavior and positive outcomes for good behavior on a daily basis. I also wanted my kids to get more involved in chores around the house, but I needed flexibility in the chore system and didn’t want a rigid “chore chart.” Rather than implement a big system all at once, we started with one thing and edited it over time to find what worked for our family.

Our system is complete with three parts:

1. The Behavior Chart

2. The Star Bank

3. The Treasure Box

Let’s dive in:

The Behavior Chart

We start everyone on “green” aka “Fine” every day at breakfast.

Kids get clipped up or down based on their behaviors.

• Hit a sibling? clipped down

• Clean your room? clipped up

My general rule of thumb is that you get a warning before you get clipped down for a behavior and that you need to spend about 5-10 minutes doing a chore or you need to do something extra-kind to get clipped up (like helping your little sister get dressed for the day).

I wanted the flexibility to have the kids do different chores each day based on the family needs, so I don’t have a hard and fast rule of what chores they have to do to get clipped up. This framework also helps the kids see how members of the family contribute at different levels based on their capability.

I wanted a reward system that offered the flexibility for my kids to come up with their own ideas of what would add value to the family right now, today.

The behavior chart is visual (on our fridge) and laminated. Simple clothes pins mark the status of each child. Here is an affiliate link to the laminator and clothes pins I have.

When we wake up the next morning, we hand out rewards for yesterday’s behavior (see below)

Pro tip: have the child move their own clip on the chart… for us this seems to make the outcome more tangible for kids.

The Star Rewards

If a child finished the day at the top of the behavior chart “excellent”, they receive a star for the previous day’s behavior at breakfast in the morning.

Note that it is not enough to achieve “excellent” at some point in the day, but they must finish the day at the top of the chart (this is how we achieve good bedtime behaviors).

We hand out stars and let the kids place them in their own visual star jar. This visual star jar is magnetic and stays on the fridge as a reminder for how we reward good behavior.

The star jar holds a finite amount of stars, so kids need to use them or lose them. We allow kids to save up their stars, but we also encourage them to use their stars at the treasure chest. Here is an affiliate link to the star jars we use.

Side note - I think it’s funny to see how certain kids react to getting a star. My 4yo spends every star as soon as she gets it (you can see her jar is empty above). The 8yo will save up stars for bigger items. The 6yo with a heart of gold will spend stars on other people. This star jar has led to many great conversations with my kids on how to save, when to spend, and how to manage your own needs versus others.

The Treasure Chest

We have a treasure chest with items which interest our kids and their ages of 4-8 years old. Some items can be bought with 1 star and some items need 5+ stars.

We also find local events and allow the kids to cash in stars to attend an event. We recently did this for monster jam.

The kids are allowed to pool their stars together to get a higher value item. Need ideas for your treasure chest? Here is an affiliate link to some items we bought for ours.

Pro tip: only open the treasure chest for shopping once per day, and make sure its for a limited amount of time unless you want to be managing the treasure chest all day every day.

What’s changed

Our kids aren’t perfect, but they do better understand how their behavior can have consequences or rewards. They are often seeking out ways to add value to their siblings or the family overall, which is honestly game changing.

The system is flexible enough that we can use it to serve our needs as parents to teach the lessons we want to teach on that day.

If you were considering getting started with this system, make a simple clip chart and see how your family does with it! You don’t have the implement the system all at once to start getting some of the benefits.

Here is an (affiliate) link to the star jars, laminator, clothes pins, and some of the treasures we have in our treasure box.

If you have a behavior system that is working for you, tell us about it in the comments!

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