Oct 20 2007
Sticker Games With Kids
I have been having challenges of making Ian eats vegetables.
Lately, I’ve started a game with him, and received quite a good result. It all started with one evening when I was feeding him, he asked me to buy him a toy gun. I then told him: every day, if he eats a lot of vegetables, he will earn one sticker. After collecting 30 stickers, I will buy him a toy gun.
This is an idea stolen from those supermaket’s marketing promo. 
Ian has a sticker book which he collects the stickers I reward him when he does something good.
He has collected quite some good stickers, about 4-5 pages full:
Now, on the final page, I drew some boxes and wrote numbers 1 to 30. I intentionally drew more boxes so I can continue the game for other things. 
Now, he has collected 16 little bird stickers, another 14 to go before I will buy him a toy gun.
Given the success of this, I’ve extended this to something easier to do for him. As I am trying to make him sleep earlier at night (used to be 10pm and I want it to be 8:30pm), I’m in the effort to change his afternoon nap habit. MIL always let him nap till 7pm (how to sleep again at 8pm??). So, I told Ian, if he wakes up at 4pm without crying, I’d give him a sticker. Upon collecting of 5 stickers, he will get a reward that varies.
With this new reward scheme, it is so easy to achieve my mission! He is now on 2-4pm nap, and 8:30pm to 7am sleep. Well, he doesn’t really sleep at 8:30pm, but at least he goes to bed at 8:30pm. I am very happy with this little game, and I will think of more similar ones. Hmm… what rewards are good???
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I think Ian has very high EQ to be able to go through with this game. Other kids might have just given up or throw a tantrum.
Hey! I just started this too. Unfortunately Ryan has not understood the objective yet - it is to reward him for brushing his teeth. He still insist on sticking many many stickers!
Sigh … I will continue with this and hopefully I will achieve your results.
What a good idea..! i will try it on Chloe too. and let you know.
Brilliant!!! Am recommending this for my kid too.
aiyu: Ya, sometimes I think Ian is very obedient especially if I can reason with him and answer all his ‘why’ questions. Even to give him a reward, he demands me to answer ‘why’!
I wonder if Isabel will accept this ‘game’…
Busy Bee: Hahaha! I didn’t start with this game straight away in the beginning. I started with giving 1 sticker for every good behaviour. For example, if he greeted people as I asked him to, I gave him a sticker. It was without prior agreement - so his good behaviour and rewards are solely up to my judgement whether it worths a sticker or not. And it was purely stickers, without any further rewards. After nearly a year already since introducing that, only now I attach a reward for a number of stickers he collects. As kids grow, simple stickers cannot motivate as much as before…
MamaBok/Jojo: Hope it works for your children too. Let me know ya?
very interesting..i might try it..soon..like nexyear..hihi..i donated all my books to library…i was moving out and couldn’t bring everything with me….i don’t regret this but i won’t do it anymore again..
wah…so good! can I copykat?
BZBee: Actually you can start trying once the kid reaches 2 years old. Start with something simpler first - give one sticker with any good behaviour, for encouragement.
MM: Sure, sure! Let me know whether it works with yours?