Parents ask me all the time. “We tried the sticker chart. We tried the prize box. For a week or two it worked, and then it just… stopped. He’s back to where he started, maybe worse, and now he’s figured out how to work the system for the smallest amount of effort possible.”

Parents usually think the problem is that they picked the wrong reward, or that they didn’t stay consistent enough, or that their child is somehow immune to positive reinforcement, so they try a bigger prize, a better chart, more consistency, and for a little while it works, until it stops working again and they’re right back where they started.

What’s Actually Happening When Rewards Stop Working

Here’s what’s actually going on. The child may be just trying to get the reward without considering the real reason for doing the behavior. Say he’s being rewarded for picking up after himself. When you ask him why he picked up the garbage, he’ll say he’s doing it for the prize, rather than because he wants a clean room. Many people assume that the child will get enough practice doing the correct behaviors that he will now continue doing them independently, but it doesn’t work like that. We need to train the child to understand why he needs to do the behavior, because otherwise he’s just doing it for the reward, and as soon as the reward stops, he will stop, or he may try to manipulate to get more reward for less effort.

Charlie’s Story

I worked with a boy I’ll call Charlie, who was constantly getting sent to the principal’s office. He was a bright, lively kid, but sitting through a long lesson didn’t come easily to him, and when he got restless he’d start disrupting class, folding paper airplanes at his desk instead of paying attention. The school had tried it all, reward charts, prize contests, and nothing stuck for more than a couple of weeks.

So instead of adding another incentive, I sat down with Charlie and asked him directly. What’s going on in class? Is something making it hard for you?

“It’s just really hard to sit still for so long,” he told me. “The teacher goes on and on, and I can’t help it, I need to get up and do something.” So I asked him, “What do you think would happen if everyone in class got up and started doing their own thing whenever they felt restless?” Charlie thought about it. “It would be really loud, nobody could hear the teacher.” “What else?” “Nobody would learn anything.” That helped him realize that behaving wasn’t about being controlled or rewarded by someone else, it was in his own best interest, and everyone else’s in the class, to be able to learn.

What Actually Lasts

A child can’t succeed by just being taught the correct behavior. He needs to understand and internalize why that behavior actually helps him. A reward can get him to do the right thing in the moment, but it doesn’t teach him why it matters.

I’m not saying rewards don’t have their place, but if that’s the whole plan, all you’re building is a child who behaves because someone’s paying him to, not because he understands why it matters. The question worth asking, with any system like this: are we creating a child who always needs someone else to manage his behavior, or one who’s learning to behave from within?