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The Potty Training Sticker Chart

and Other Ways of Motivating for Potty Training

In order to make potty training as stress-free as possible for both you and your child take a positive approach. Motivate and incentivize your toddler to encourage them through the potty training journey. Using rewards and praise will achieve better results than punishment and anger.
Start using motivational tools such as sticker charts to get co-operation in other areas. By introducing this practice early, your child will become familiar with how your family reinforces and celebrates success and co-operation.
What to reward for
Decide in advance what and how you will reward. Ensure that all the family is on board so that you have a consistent approach. You may want to use praise for some and double rewards for other more difficult to master skills. Some suggestions are:
1. Sitting on the potty
2. Successfully urinating or doing a bowel movement in potty or toilet
3. Staying dry
4. Don’t forget hand washing
5. Putting the seat down afterwards – for little boys
Ways of motivating for potty training
If you are not sure what tools to use to motivate your potty trainee, consider what has already worked to incentivize them in other areas such as discipline. If they are familiar with star or sticker charts and they have worked before, use them again. Consider asking your tot what she would like for a reward. Here are some ideas:
1. Verbal praise – always give lots of verbal praise to your training toddler. Verbal praise allows you to reward her for smaller victories which might not warrant stars or full rewards. Your child values your praise.
2. Potty prizes – this is a bowl of either small, cheap, wrapped prizes or some people use M&Ms or Smarties in bathroom. Use a clear bowl which means your tot can see and covet the prizes.
3. Sticker chart – star or sticker charts can be used in many ways. They allow you o space out actual rewards as your toddler is motivated by getting the stars on the way to the ‘big’ reward. An effective way of using a star chart for you and your child is to put a cross in the box when a request is made (please sit on the potty), and then covered by sticker if they comply. This way you will have a way of keeping track of how many requests you have made. ‘Big’ rewards can be almost anything – extra bubbles in the bath, an extra bedtime book – or check with your toddler, ask her what she would like!
4. Stickers for potty – a cheap, fun option is to reward with fun stickers of the child’s choice. This way they can personalize their potty as they receive their rewards. It is a highly visual way for your tot to see how they are progressing.
5. Real knickers – let your child pick their own ‘real’ knickers. Most young children have a favorite character or color. Knowing that when they have mastered potty training that they will move from trainer pants to these special ‘real’ knickers is a strong motivator for toddlers and preschoolers.
6. Toilet targets – for little boys who have mastered sitting and are now moving on to standing, put a target in the toilet bowl to encourage them to try the new technique…with the bonus that it should reduce mess and splashes. Small ball of paper and Cherrios make great toilet targets. Another option is to add some blue or red food color to the bowl so that your wee man can watch the water change color (green from blue and orange from red).
Don’t forget to pre-sell rewards to your toddler to get her excited about what is coming up. It is essential that your trainee buys in to the process so that she is looking forward to potty training.
No matter how exciting the reward, some children get bored with the process over time and might need extra incentive to persist. Consider having special activities for potty time – songs, games, book reading or a favorite toy.

article from: http://totalpottytraining.com/potty-training-motivation/