Why You Need to Put Your Behaviour Charts and Stickers in the Bin! (And What to Do Instead)

It’s that time of year when you’re feeling refreshed (hopefully!), you’ve put the final touches to our classrooms and are getting ready to welcome a new group of children. Everyone wants to spend these first few weeks getting to know them and establishing relationships and routines to make a positive start - which will pay off as the year goes on. But what if some of our approaches have some unintended negative impact and what could we put in place instead? 

In our e-zine this month, you’ll have read more about how children gain a reputation when they start school - and how this can be difficult (or impossible) to change. When we use public approaches to behaviour in our classrooms, such as behaviour charts, ladders, sunshines and clouds we’re cementing this reputation for many of our children, and possibly strongly influencing their view of themselves and of school. 

This month’s e-zine

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Our practice and even the words we use to describe children’s behaviour are linked to psychological theories which underpin the approach (even if we don’t realise!).

Behaviour charts are based on understandings from behaviourist researchers, with many of the experiments that have led to these approaches being carried out with animals. We’ve probably all heard of experiments like Pavlov’s dogs - the one where he rang a bell before giving dogs food, and found that after multiple repetitions dogs would salivate when they heard the bell. 

Approaches to supporting behaviour that are based on rewards and punishment are based on these ideas about reinforcement and conditioning. As well as the impact on children’s reputation, these approaches with their focus on the behaviours we can see, don’t support the development of social skills beyond following a rule.[1] And if you pause and think our rules are often not as clear as they first seem - expectations in different situations vary even if ‘the rules’ stay the same.  

While we might think - ‘but the children love the rewards,’ ‘ everyone can get a reward,’ or ‘but I make sure everyone gets star of the week.’  Research suggests that even this element of behaviourist approaches, which we might expect to be positive, can lead to children finding it difficult to understand how to be a ‘good pupil.’ For example, they know they should be quiet and listen, but at other times they should talk, contribute and collaborate, or they should produce ‘good work’ so they might choose activities they know they can do but they should also seek challenges (which often includes failing before succeeding).[2]

The neurodivergent children in our settings (probably at least 4-6 children in each class of 30) might find the nuance between the rules we talk about and the behaviour that is rewarded or punished difficult to understand.

Depending on the rules we have in place, sanctions might lead to masking of natural traits, for example if ‘good listening’ means being still and making eye contact. Or they could result in public shaming for behaviours linked to a child's neurodivergence, for example their reaction to experiencing sensory overwhelm [3]. This means these approaches are not conducive to the inclusive, welcoming classrooms we all want to create.

I know if you’ve had a behaviour chart of some sort for many years this might all feel like a lot to take in. And most of us have used rewards and punishments at some point in our career - possibly with a star of the week and/or sad face display in the mix too. 

I think we have greater understanding of the impact of these approaches now, and a growing body of research that helps us see what we can do instead. And, when you pause and think about this with your team, you’ll see you’ve been doing lots of the things I am going to suggest already - the final step is dropping the rewards/sanctions - and public shaming (or celebrating).  

What do we do instead?

When we move away from behaviourist approaches there are other theories that can support us, for example attachment, social interaction and those which understand behaviour in terms of human needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness.[1] These theories help us to build our approaches based on our understanding of individual children and the importance of relationships within our settings. 

This includes the knowledge that children might not all need an identical approach, but that we as the adults in the room we’re responsible for helping them to regulate and form positive relationships.

As you plan how to change your approach reflect with your team and together decide how you can make sure you have the following things in place:

All adults view behaviour as communication 

The adults focus is on understanding, supporting and teaching rather than seeing behaviour they find challenging as something to be managed or dealt with. This means also sharing approaches with families and working with other professionals as appropriate. 

A space to regulate

 Remember younger children/ children who have not experienced co-regulation need other people to co-regulate. 

Your regulation space is not only about having a place for calm, it’s about supporting children to recognise the energy they need for the situation and helping them to regulate, which could include knowing when an alerting activity might be helpful. It could be having resources that you can help them to take into another space that will support regulation.

It is also important to make sure if you have a regulation space, this does not become a sanction or a place for ‘time out’. 

Emotion coaching - and use of empathy/mind-minded comments 

Emotion coaching involves responding with empathy and joining children in problem-solving while setting clear limits on behaviour. 

It involves adults recognising and accepting children’s emotions, rather than dismissing those we view as ‘negative’.[4]

When you use emotion coaching, your knowledge of individual children is very important, not all children will be able to recognise and name emotions.[3]

For example, if a child has sensory processing differences, they might need support recognising how their body is feeling and how this links to emotions. Verbal emotion coaching might be experienced as a demand, and the first step you take might be to co-regulate.

Practising strategies when regulated

We all know that people making suggestions when we are dysregulated rarely helps, but practising some techniques such as starfish breathing, pushing against a wall, or moving rhythmically, provides a toolkit of strategies children can access (with support if needed) when they are dysregulated.

And you can have pictures or objects linked to familiar regulation activities available to support co-regulation, and as children develop, self-regulation. 

Recognising and seeking to understand a child’s whole experience 

This is not about judging homes or families or about making assumptions based on developmental differences, but means seeking to understand and connect. It brings us back to where we started with adults who view behaviour as communication.

This might help you plan when children might need time to move or quiet time. For example, if you know the morning before school is very busy for your children, some movement time or a short yoga activity to provide some proprioceptive stimulation might be a better way to start the day, rather than going straight to a carpet session. 

But what about…?

Children need to know what is expected/ rules are important

It is important to highlight that moving away from behaviourist approaches does not mean the adults do not set limits. It means that the way these are shared and set is built on a foundation of positive relationships. This means at the start of the year the focus is on building relationships, rather than introducing rewards and sanctions. The focus for you when supporting children’s behaviour is on teaching and not compliance.

The whole school policy

You might not feel you can influence the policy in your school - if you are in a leadership position you might be able to suggest a change in approach. I would encourage you to think about what you can do within your classroom, think about how your environment welcomes every child and how you can make relationships the foundation of your practice. 

Children like praise/stickers

This might be true and saying well done is often a natural response within our relationships moving away from rewards and punishments doesn’t mean never saying, “That’s great!” It does mean supporting children to recognise when they feel happy or proud of something they have achieved. 

It’s important to recognise that a system of rewards, goes with sanctions and punishments, and is based on the same underpinning theories. This might lead to children who do (or don’t) do things to either get a reward or avoid a sanction, but perhaps not to children learning and understanding themselves and those around them. 

If you’re curious, look out for more about behaviour this month, including how we can support children as they (and their friends) move between rooms and our suggestions for a relationships policy.

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References:

[1] Hart, R. (2010). Classroom behaviour management: educational psychologists views on effective practice. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 15

[2] Wilders, C. & Levy, R. (2021). ‘I don’t really like the thing what you do, I like it more because you get the stickers’: the impact of rules and rewards on children’s transition experiences, International Journal of Early Years Education, 29:4, 391-404, DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2020.1759401

[3] Murphy, K. (2023). A guide to neurodiversity in the early years. Anna Freud Centre. 

[4] Gottman, J. (2001). Meta-emotion, children’s emotional intelligence, and buffering children from marital conflict. In Ryff, C.D & Singer, B.H. (eds) Emotion, social relationships, and health. Oxford University Press.