Extrinsic motivation, like stars or money, can be effective but it can also have undesired consequences. For example, when the stars go away, the kid might end up not doing that activity at all or disliking it even more because s/he does not perceive it as a valuable thing on its own. Research shows that extrinsic motivation tends to undermine people's sense of self-determination (see Deci & Ryan).
On the other hand, it's good to set goals, and for kids especially it's good to have a concrete way to visualize those goals. It's hard for a preschooler (who can't easily count past 10) to understand what it means to do something "every day for 2 weeks." (What the heck is a week?)
I agree that tying it to an external reward can be risky. It might be better to do the chart without any reward. Or make sure the kid chooses an activity as the reward, so it's more like "rewarding myself" instead of "earning goodies".
I came here to say this too. I'm reading Drive by Daniel Pink which does a compelling job of illustrating and explaining the consequences of Deci and others' research in this area. It's a more business focused book, but he discusses this exact thing.
I'm not big on extrinsic rewards as a parenting tool. But sometimes kids like having structure. I'm a go-with-the-flow type. My ex husband is a more structured type. When we began homeschooling, we tried it my way -- and it was a disaster. This kids hated it. So we tried it "daddy's way" -- and it was a disaster. The kids hated it. The kids were, surprise surprise, somewhere between their two parents in that regard. And they also differed from each other. My older one is more like me and my younger one is more like their dad. We ended up setting up charts and stuff so the kids had a tool to track activities and goals without having to bug mom all day, every day about how much more there was to do and so forth -- we did this more for the kids' sanity than for mine. They hated not knowing and having to ask so much.
So I think it depends in part on how one uses something like this. I don't think it has to be about the top listed point: Motivate kids with an end goal in mind. It can be more about their next item: Track progress towards goals. It's just a tool. I'm sure different parents will use it differently, depending upon a variety of factors including their parenting philosophy.
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Extrinsic motivation, like stars or money, can be effective but it can also have undesired consequences. For example, when the stars go away, the kid might end up not doing that activity at all or disliking it even more because s/he does not perceive it as a valuable thing on its own. Research shows that extrinsic motivation tends to undermine people's sense of self-determination (see Deci & Ryan).
On the other hand, it's good to set goals, and for kids especially it's good to have a concrete way to visualize those goals. It's hard for a preschooler (who can't easily count past 10) to understand what it means to do something "every day for 2 weeks." (What the heck is a week?)
Heck, it's useful for adults too - lots of popular productivity techniques are basically grown-up star charts, for example: http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-se...
I agree that tying it to an external reward can be risky. It might be better to do the chart without any reward. Or make sure the kid chooses an activity as the reward, so it's more like "rewarding myself" instead of "earning goodies".
I came here to say this too. I'm reading Drive by Daniel Pink which does a compelling job of illustrating and explaining the consequences of Deci and others' research in this area. It's a more business focused book, but he discusses this exact thing.
Rather than downvoting the above comment (have upvoted it back) can people argue for/against his logic?
I'm not big on extrinsic rewards as a parenting tool. But sometimes kids like having structure. I'm a go-with-the-flow type. My ex husband is a more structured type. When we began homeschooling, we tried it my way -- and it was a disaster. This kids hated it. So we tried it "daddy's way" -- and it was a disaster. The kids hated it. The kids were, surprise surprise, somewhere between their two parents in that regard. And they also differed from each other. My older one is more like me and my younger one is more like their dad. We ended up setting up charts and stuff so the kids had a tool to track activities and goals without having to bug mom all day, every day about how much more there was to do and so forth -- we did this more for the kids' sanity than for mine. They hated not knowing and having to ask so much.
So I think it depends in part on how one uses something like this. I don't think it has to be about the top listed point: Motivate kids with an end goal in mind. It can be more about their next item: Track progress towards goals. It's just a tool. I'm sure different parents will use it differently, depending upon a variety of factors including their parenting philosophy.