How to Create Effective Behavior Charts by Rachel funnell, lmft

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1. Keep it simple: By keeping the behavior chart simple, you are able to set yourself up for success. You want to make it easy to maintain and easy for the children to comprehend. If it’s too complicated or takes too much effort or time to maintain then you will not stick with it.
2. Keep it to 3 or less behaviors: One difficult, one easy, and one that’s in the middle. Again you want to keep it simple and not be too overwhelming for you or your children to complete.  
3. Write the behaviors in a positive manner: What do you want them to do rather than what you don’t want them to do. i.e.: write “Safe hands and feet” rather than “No hitting or kicking”.
4. Make rewards/incentives simple and not monetary or tangible items: It’s important to make the rewards/incentives that encourage positive interactions with others. For example, a reward could be they get to pick what’s made for dinner tomorrow, or they get to pick out the family movie. Asking the children what they would like to have as an incentive, helps to get them on board with the chart and creates excitement.
5. Once the behavior is achieved, chose a different one to work on: If you notice that your child is receiving the incentives quickly and it’s no longer a challenge for them, switch the behavior to something else that they need to work on.
6. Always be consistent and follow through with it: Very important to having a successful behavior chart is consistency and follow through. If you don’t follow through with the rewards or tracking, then your children will take that to mean that it’s not important.

Utilize the internet to get behavior chart templates: There are a lot of different templates online that allow you to customize it to your child’s interests. ​