Giving out candy is against Head Start policy, so they definitely shouldn't be doing that (I'm against using candy as a reinforcer for any children, though). And we need to be really careful about how we use reward systems for young children, *especially* when teaching children with difficult home lives, like those enrolled in Head Start.
Completely understand this. I’m a little uncomfortable about offering food and then dangling it over there head in that way. Especially when my job caters to low income families
Candy should not be a used as a reinforcer, period.
I don't like prize boxes. It's usually the same couple of kids never getting a prize. That's not going to get them to "behave" but instead just pointing it out in front of everyone (the kids, the families, the staff - everyone that sees the child leave the classroom) that they weren't good enough to get a prize. That's a lot of pressure.
I don’t even do stickers in my classroom. Teaching children to behave for rewards is not a good way to reinforce behaviors, it just teaches them that all actions are transactional. IMO teaching kids to be kind, helpful, and empathetic because it’s how they would want to be treated is more meaningful long-term (and developmentally appropriate)
>it just teaches them that all actions are transactional
This. We had a student teacher. The lead let her implement whatever ideas she wanted, whether we agreed with them or not. She implemented a reward system where they got stars for whatever behavior she deemed star worthy. At the end of the week, she'd have them count their stars, and the person with the most stars got a reward. It was always the same kids.
Also, it wasn't long before we were hearing things like, "I helped Johnny up when he fell. Do I get a star?" I hated it and as soon as she was gone, so was the reward system
That’s what I’ve been taught as well. It’ll only serve to make behavioral problems worse. What do you do to reward positive behavior? In my wildest dreams I would use the prizes as a tool to get them to behave throughout the day, but by the time they were being picked up they would all earn one.
I use verbal acknowledgement of behavior- Kayla is using her walking feet, John is being a good friend helping Tim clean up.
I also send home positive notes. Every kid gets one per week.
If you want to use a visual reward system then I suggest stickers or hand stamps. I've seen teachers use these successfully without as much drama as a toy or candy.
I do “bucket-filling”—when I see a kind act in the classroom, they put a marble in our bucket. When the bucket is full, we have a class “prize” that they decide on together. Two months ago it was a treasure hunt, this month it was a costume day! I found that it really helped with behavior management
We do 'Ultraman energy balls'. It is usually the same behaviour kid that loses a ton of energy balls when he acts up BUT I A) give him a ton of warnings before I start taking them and B) I give him a ton of chances to earn them back. For example, I took three of them the other day because he was rude to our TA and refused to do his work while I was working with another child, but then when I'd finished with that other child, I told him that if he came over and talked to me, he could earn the energy balls back. I got him to calm down, count to ten and take some deep breaths, and I put the balls back in his container, and then I got him to go through his worksheet with me, then gave him one more ball - showing him that he got the rewards back and got an extra one when he stopped the behaviour and did what he was asked.
If they get so many energy balls each day, they can exchange them for a piece of candy or cookie or sticker or sometimes something a little bit bigger like a bubble blower or a small toy or pencil.
I’m gonna join the chorus of against treats/toys/prizes as behavior management. Praise & attention is most effective. Ime, the kids who have high behavior needs don’t care about the sticker or candy and will do whatever they need to do for your attention, which is generally what they need. I found that the kids getting the stickers were the ones who do the right thing regardless, and the kid losing their shit and throwing stuff is just gonna get more dysregulated bc they didn’t get something cool.
plus — we should be praising effort and progress, which is different for every kid. I may have one student who works *really* hard to not hit, but still screams. Great job, we were safe all day! And another student who is normally calm and quiet but threw a screaming tantrum today. Same behavior, different effort. I’m not giving them both a sticker. It’s way easier to personalize verbal praise.
“Wow, student A, you were so mad that you screamed, but you used your self control skills and you were so safe. That was so hard and you did it! I’m so proud of you”
“Hey student B, I see you’re really upset because you were really looking forward to having your pink water bottle today but mommy brought the green one. Next time we can tell mommy “please bring the pink one!” It’s ok to feel upset, and what can we do to help our body calm down? Deep breaths, play with a fidget, etc”.
That feels fair. But if student B doesn’t get a sticker and student A does, then student B is having tantrum #2.
Are you a first year? I had the same attitude as you initially. 3 years in I see that sometimes these things are the only way you can manage behavior issues that will escalate into safety concerns if they don't get addressed. I'm still pretty liberal about giving out treats, though. Any kid who turns their behavior around by the end of the day gets one. But it's not every single kid every day.
Thank you this is really helpful! I’m trying to find the balance between being gentle like they taught me to be in school, and being strict with my boy-class lol. Yes I am a first year teacher lol! Not new to childcare but new to this position.
as a parent and a teacher... Please don't. You're creating kids who expect extrinsic physical prizes for basic expectations of life.
External verbal validation is completely age appropriate.
As parents, we don't want the dollar store junk coming home every day either
This I understand, however I have had some students this year who don’t really get the same affirmation from verbal praise as others. So I’m finding my verbal praise to work on maybe 85% of my kids, and the rest seem to care less. So as a parent, if your child had this trait, what would you suggest?
Woof, well what we have here is a whole paradigm of thinking in which nothing I nor anyone else has to say may be of any help. For instance the value here seems to be temporary compliance, not that a person learns to access their internal locus of control. Who are these students besides people you tell what to do and how? Are they whole beings with preferences and rights? We do want small children to develop pro social skills and to understand the value of contributing to the community, in fact what is the worth of anything else? There is so much to know to help with this paradigm shift, starting with Alfie Kohn and Jon Dewey. Bribing children may work at first but it is not good for them or anybody in the long run. Best of luck. Read read read! There are so many experts that have spent their life in the study and service of Early Childhood Pedagogy!! It's such good stuff!!
A long time ago I read somewhere that material reinforcements work best when it’s random. So that’s what I’ve been following. I like to give out rewards (smiley faces drawn with marker, or stickers), sparingly and randomly. I don’t like that sometimes teachers give rewards every time for a behavior (unless it’s part of that students behavior plan) because that turns the motivation to do good outwards. If there is no sticker that day will the child still do the behavior? Or my peeve is, the student clearly did not demonstrate that behavior but still gets the sticker anyway. Thus the purpose of a reward is lost. It’s one thing to give stickers to everybody just to give them, but if the teacher is trying to use it as a reinforcer I think it should only be given if the behavior is demonstrated.
In the beginning I’ve had children ask me “well I did [the behavior] do I get a sticker” and I have to tell them “no, that’s something you’re supposed to do everyday. Stickers are for special occasions or they are a surprise reward so keep doing [the behavior] everyday!” Ofc what I do give everytime time is a verbal labeled praise, plenty of thumbs up and smiles, so that the sticker really does feel like a special reward. Or if I notice participation in a certain activity I’ll give the participants a sticker and that usually motivates the rest of them to participate. But again, I use this sparingly and randomly.
Ofc there are different philosophies and views on this, this is just what I do.
I follow your thinking. I’m a big believer in tiny rewards because let’s face it, we all like to get rewarded. I would keep containers of animal crackers, teddy grahams, goldfish, stickers, and stamps in my desk drawer. Every so often I would pull out a container-at a random time-and announce the behavior I was looking for (“Let’s see who has their body on their picture”) and start giving a reward. This reminded kids of a behavior expectations, gave them an immediate tangible reward, and gave them an opportunity to follow that expectation. Every time I did this my intention was to reward every single child, which almost always happened, and they were rewarded for following a specific expectation.
I do like the idea of random rewards. I definitely dislike the way that some children will begin to expect tangible items for positive behavior. But doing away with prizes all together seems rather boring !!! I want to find a middle ground where I’m not upsetting my TA by giving out prizes too sparingly, but everyone is consistently being rewarded lol. As I’m typing it out it sounds impossible lol!!
I don’t mind prizes. But like “prize Friday” or something. Not every single day. Every day creates entitlement and therefore increases behaviors if ever they miss out on one.
One of my teachers uses a pompom jar method. Fills the jars for walking feet in the hallways and classroom, inside voices, talking about feelings and using manners, ect. Then when the jar gets full everyone gets something. It became a team effort with children reminding other child and monitoring each other to work towards the common goal.
My school uses candy as a reward and I disagree with it. I don’t give little treats for expected behavior, I point out who is doing what they should be doing and talk them up and watch the rest scramble to be the next to get loaded with praise. I’m sure parents appreciate not dealing with junky plastic trash and extra sugar.
It’s okay for kids to not get rewards they don’t earn. That being said, it’s part of a teachers duty to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for children to succeed and earn those rewards.
The time frame needs to be kept age-appropriate, though. A 3 year old isn't going to remember throwing a book before morning meeting, so they're just going to be sad 8 hours later when they don't get a sticker.
Treasure boxes can be problematic bc it’s too many choices. And they typically have to go out it in their cubby/backpack immediately.
Activity rewards that I use include sleeping with the class pet at nap, playing tag with the teacher, dance party and they pick the song. My kids earn stamps on their hand and choose their reward as part of their sign in. Also, I’ll use “scent spots” as a way to deliver a quick, immediate reward. Just rub a small circle of candy scented chapstick on their hands. They go nuts for it!
I’ve been hearing so much about the scent spots…I gotta try it. Sleeping with the class pet is also a great idea. I have to ask, do you really play tag with your kids? My goodness I don’t have that stamina 😂
I do! Each reward isn’t available every day so if I am not feeling it, I just don’t make it an option. We also do 1:1 story, “walking” their nap stuffy around the school, feeding the actual bunnies in the center, making copies on the copy machiene, and occasionally a Hershey kiss is available to earn.
I've retired out of the field now, but I've seen a lot of different teaching styles. I strongly dislike the treats/sickers/etc ideology in that in reinforces external means of regulation such as, "I shouldn't grab this toy from my friend because teacher will give me a candy" vs "I shouldn't grab this toy out of my friends hands because then she will be sad and I don't want to hurt my friend's feelings."
Over time (kids I've taught are now applying for university!!) I've seen more emotional maturity earlier on and an easier time with emotional regulation later in life when the young children learned more intrinsic methods of emotional maturity.
Star charts/ rewards/ prizes etc have been proven not to work long term. Particularly since it’s being handed out right & left and you’re actively trying to make sure all children go home with something…Additionally, if my child came home with candy I’d be not happy.
In regard to behavior reinforcement needs to be frequent and prompt. A three year old has no concept of how his daily behavior results in a prize at the end of the day. Whatever behavior you reinforce will continue to happen. If you actually want the poor behavior to change hype them up when they demonstrate the preferred skill.
In my 3's room, they earned 3 coins (plastic from the dollar store) a day. One for a good morning, one for a good nap, one for a good afternoon. Then on Friday they can spend their coins on the "prize store" and different things cost different amounts of coins.
So default behavior gets the full timers about 15 coins a week. If they lose a coin, they always have time and chances to earn an extra unless they lose the very last coin on Friday.
My store has basically pinata stuffers, and the only candy I offer is very expensive (10 coins for one saf-t-pop, 5 coins for a tootsie roll or starburst) They cannot see how many coins anyone else has.
I know the research on using prizes but honestly it's the one selfish-ish thing I do to bring myself joy. So I tried to mitigate the majority of the potential for harm
Early 3s is too young for this. They cannot be expected to control their impulses all day over a lollipop and they cannot be expected to understand why their classmates are getting a lollipop and they are not. It is cruel.
Age 5 is appropriate to start this. Also, you might want to ask the parents if candy rewards are ok - it might be preferred to offer alternative treats or rewards such as stickers or bubble blowers.
I’ve been in this field since 1996 and have never heard of this. Is it a neurodivergent group?
I would focus on adjusting the classroom and the schedule to make it a better environment to pull better behavior out of the kids than focus on reward based systems, honestly.
My class was the dolphin classroom. My kids were 3.5-4.5. I made each child a star chart with 10 stars. They earned dolphins to put on their charts for different milestones, positive behaviors, etc. When they filled their chart, they got a treasure box. This gives them small, immediate gratification for each behavior (dolphins) and the bigger rewards for long term positive behaviors (treasure box).
I haven't tried this in a preschool setting (I'm now an ex preschool teacher working with older children) but within a single classroom I've done raffle tickets that go into a draw for a prize (my prizes are always novelty stationery e.g. pencils, erasers etc.) and I've seen it as a whole school rewards system where every teacher can reward a child with tickets and at the end of the week one child from each year group will be drawn out for a prize. Mathematically this means the 'good' kids get more chances but even if you only do the right thing once you still have a chance.
Without even having physical prizes for the kids to take home you could reward kids with jobs like the special helper for group time or choose which song we play for quiet time etc. This is why picking one name out of a hat is helpful because everyone gets praise and a chance to win but only one person can actually be the winner if it's a job.
Incentives do improve learning outcomes, but incentives must be maintained throughout every grade level. Research has shown that learning outcomes become worse when incentives are removed -- worse than they were before incentives were introduced.
In my classroom, to start appreciating desired behaviors I introduce sticker books. AKA a piece of paper folded like a book with their name and give out small stickers. I only use them during difficult times such as transitions and always use reminders prior, "this is what you would look like if you are on the carpet and would like to add to your sticker book." I then slowly dismiss the stickers and use my words as their reward and share how helpful they are being doing the right thing. Eventually they forget about stickers and the only time i use them again is when someone goes above and beyond. This is something like sharing without being asked or kindness in some way.
I am no expert obviously just wanted to share what's been helpful in my room the last three years.
I would be really upset as a parent if my child was given candy on a daily basis, and even more so to manipulate their behavior.
I didn’t do that as a teacher, I wouldn’t want it as a parent.
Check out Conscious Discipline by Becky Bailey. It’s expensive to take the course of your center won’t fund it, but they also have some affordable books and free info on the website. It gives evidence based strategies (based on how the human brain works) to encourage desired behavior AND build healthy relationships in your classroom at the same time. It made a world of difference to
use in my classroom of 3-5 year old students.
We do “Smelly Circles” in my class, which is literally just flavored lip smackers we rub in a circle on the top of their hand, and I find that it works better than the traditional reward system and is also a great sensory tool for calm down corners!
Giving out candy is against Head Start policy, so they definitely shouldn't be doing that (I'm against using candy as a reinforcer for any children, though). And we need to be really careful about how we use reward systems for young children, *especially* when teaching children with difficult home lives, like those enrolled in Head Start.
Very much agreed, food-based rewards are very different for children with food scarcity at home, who may never get ‘treat’ foods like that.
Completely understand this. I’m a little uncomfortable about offering food and then dangling it over there head in that way. Especially when my job caters to low income families
Candy should not be a used as a reinforcer, period. I don't like prize boxes. It's usually the same couple of kids never getting a prize. That's not going to get them to "behave" but instead just pointing it out in front of everyone (the kids, the families, the staff - everyone that sees the child leave the classroom) that they weren't good enough to get a prize. That's a lot of pressure.
I don’t even do stickers in my classroom. Teaching children to behave for rewards is not a good way to reinforce behaviors, it just teaches them that all actions are transactional. IMO teaching kids to be kind, helpful, and empathetic because it’s how they would want to be treated is more meaningful long-term (and developmentally appropriate)
>it just teaches them that all actions are transactional This. We had a student teacher. The lead let her implement whatever ideas she wanted, whether we agreed with them or not. She implemented a reward system where they got stars for whatever behavior she deemed star worthy. At the end of the week, she'd have them count their stars, and the person with the most stars got a reward. It was always the same kids. Also, it wasn't long before we were hearing things like, "I helped Johnny up when he fell. Do I get a star?" I hated it and as soon as she was gone, so was the reward system
That’s what I’ve been taught as well. It’ll only serve to make behavioral problems worse. What do you do to reward positive behavior? In my wildest dreams I would use the prizes as a tool to get them to behave throughout the day, but by the time they were being picked up they would all earn one.
I use verbal acknowledgement of behavior- Kayla is using her walking feet, John is being a good friend helping Tim clean up. I also send home positive notes. Every kid gets one per week. If you want to use a visual reward system then I suggest stickers or hand stamps. I've seen teachers use these successfully without as much drama as a toy or candy.
I do “bucket-filling”—when I see a kind act in the classroom, they put a marble in our bucket. When the bucket is full, we have a class “prize” that they decide on together. Two months ago it was a treasure hunt, this month it was a costume day! I found that it really helped with behavior management
We do 'Ultraman energy balls'. It is usually the same behaviour kid that loses a ton of energy balls when he acts up BUT I A) give him a ton of warnings before I start taking them and B) I give him a ton of chances to earn them back. For example, I took three of them the other day because he was rude to our TA and refused to do his work while I was working with another child, but then when I'd finished with that other child, I told him that if he came over and talked to me, he could earn the energy balls back. I got him to calm down, count to ten and take some deep breaths, and I put the balls back in his container, and then I got him to go through his worksheet with me, then gave him one more ball - showing him that he got the rewards back and got an extra one when he stopped the behaviour and did what he was asked. If they get so many energy balls each day, they can exchange them for a piece of candy or cookie or sticker or sometimes something a little bit bigger like a bubble blower or a small toy or pencil.
I’m gonna join the chorus of against treats/toys/prizes as behavior management. Praise & attention is most effective. Ime, the kids who have high behavior needs don’t care about the sticker or candy and will do whatever they need to do for your attention, which is generally what they need. I found that the kids getting the stickers were the ones who do the right thing regardless, and the kid losing their shit and throwing stuff is just gonna get more dysregulated bc they didn’t get something cool. plus — we should be praising effort and progress, which is different for every kid. I may have one student who works *really* hard to not hit, but still screams. Great job, we were safe all day! And another student who is normally calm and quiet but threw a screaming tantrum today. Same behavior, different effort. I’m not giving them both a sticker. It’s way easier to personalize verbal praise. “Wow, student A, you were so mad that you screamed, but you used your self control skills and you were so safe. That was so hard and you did it! I’m so proud of you” “Hey student B, I see you’re really upset because you were really looking forward to having your pink water bottle today but mommy brought the green one. Next time we can tell mommy “please bring the pink one!” It’s ok to feel upset, and what can we do to help our body calm down? Deep breaths, play with a fidget, etc”. That feels fair. But if student B doesn’t get a sticker and student A does, then student B is having tantrum #2.
Yes! And kids with the biggest behaviors end up feeling like they have “nothing to lose”!!
Are you a first year? I had the same attitude as you initially. 3 years in I see that sometimes these things are the only way you can manage behavior issues that will escalate into safety concerns if they don't get addressed. I'm still pretty liberal about giving out treats, though. Any kid who turns their behavior around by the end of the day gets one. But it's not every single kid every day.
Any type of food - even candy - should never be used as a reward. Ever.
Absolutely. It’s actually against our licensing rules as well.
Agreed.
Thank you this is really helpful! I’m trying to find the balance between being gentle like they taught me to be in school, and being strict with my boy-class lol. Yes I am a first year teacher lol! Not new to childcare but new to this position.
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes by Alfie Kohn is a great book to read on this topic.
❤️❤️❤️ This is an amazing book.
This book should be required reading for all ECE professionals
Agreed!
Thank u for the rec! I love a good read 🤓
as a parent and a teacher... Please don't. You're creating kids who expect extrinsic physical prizes for basic expectations of life. External verbal validation is completely age appropriate. As parents, we don't want the dollar store junk coming home every day either
This I understand, however I have had some students this year who don’t really get the same affirmation from verbal praise as others. So I’m finding my verbal praise to work on maybe 85% of my kids, and the rest seem to care less. So as a parent, if your child had this trait, what would you suggest?
Ask me as their parent what works/what I would prefer!
Woof, well what we have here is a whole paradigm of thinking in which nothing I nor anyone else has to say may be of any help. For instance the value here seems to be temporary compliance, not that a person learns to access their internal locus of control. Who are these students besides people you tell what to do and how? Are they whole beings with preferences and rights? We do want small children to develop pro social skills and to understand the value of contributing to the community, in fact what is the worth of anything else? There is so much to know to help with this paradigm shift, starting with Alfie Kohn and Jon Dewey. Bribing children may work at first but it is not good for them or anybody in the long run. Best of luck. Read read read! There are so many experts that have spent their life in the study and service of Early Childhood Pedagogy!! It's such good stuff!!
A long time ago I read somewhere that material reinforcements work best when it’s random. So that’s what I’ve been following. I like to give out rewards (smiley faces drawn with marker, or stickers), sparingly and randomly. I don’t like that sometimes teachers give rewards every time for a behavior (unless it’s part of that students behavior plan) because that turns the motivation to do good outwards. If there is no sticker that day will the child still do the behavior? Or my peeve is, the student clearly did not demonstrate that behavior but still gets the sticker anyway. Thus the purpose of a reward is lost. It’s one thing to give stickers to everybody just to give them, but if the teacher is trying to use it as a reinforcer I think it should only be given if the behavior is demonstrated. In the beginning I’ve had children ask me “well I did [the behavior] do I get a sticker” and I have to tell them “no, that’s something you’re supposed to do everyday. Stickers are for special occasions or they are a surprise reward so keep doing [the behavior] everyday!” Ofc what I do give everytime time is a verbal labeled praise, plenty of thumbs up and smiles, so that the sticker really does feel like a special reward. Or if I notice participation in a certain activity I’ll give the participants a sticker and that usually motivates the rest of them to participate. But again, I use this sparingly and randomly. Ofc there are different philosophies and views on this, this is just what I do.
I follow your thinking. I’m a big believer in tiny rewards because let’s face it, we all like to get rewarded. I would keep containers of animal crackers, teddy grahams, goldfish, stickers, and stamps in my desk drawer. Every so often I would pull out a container-at a random time-and announce the behavior I was looking for (“Let’s see who has their body on their picture”) and start giving a reward. This reminded kids of a behavior expectations, gave them an immediate tangible reward, and gave them an opportunity to follow that expectation. Every time I did this my intention was to reward every single child, which almost always happened, and they were rewarded for following a specific expectation.
I do like the idea of random rewards. I definitely dislike the way that some children will begin to expect tangible items for positive behavior. But doing away with prizes all together seems rather boring !!! I want to find a middle ground where I’m not upsetting my TA by giving out prizes too sparingly, but everyone is consistently being rewarded lol. As I’m typing it out it sounds impossible lol!!
I don’t mind prizes. But like “prize Friday” or something. Not every single day. Every day creates entitlement and therefore increases behaviors if ever they miss out on one. One of my teachers uses a pompom jar method. Fills the jars for walking feet in the hallways and classroom, inside voices, talking about feelings and using manners, ect. Then when the jar gets full everyone gets something. It became a team effort with children reminding other child and monitoring each other to work towards the common goal.
My school uses candy as a reward and I disagree with it. I don’t give little treats for expected behavior, I point out who is doing what they should be doing and talk them up and watch the rest scramble to be the next to get loaded with praise. I’m sure parents appreciate not dealing with junky plastic trash and extra sugar.
It’s okay for kids to not get rewards they don’t earn. That being said, it’s part of a teachers duty to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for children to succeed and earn those rewards.
The time frame needs to be kept age-appropriate, though. A 3 year old isn't going to remember throwing a book before morning meeting, so they're just going to be sad 8 hours later when they don't get a sticker.
Treasure boxes can be problematic bc it’s too many choices. And they typically have to go out it in their cubby/backpack immediately. Activity rewards that I use include sleeping with the class pet at nap, playing tag with the teacher, dance party and they pick the song. My kids earn stamps on their hand and choose their reward as part of their sign in. Also, I’ll use “scent spots” as a way to deliver a quick, immediate reward. Just rub a small circle of candy scented chapstick on their hands. They go nuts for it!
I’ve been hearing so much about the scent spots…I gotta try it. Sleeping with the class pet is also a great idea. I have to ask, do you really play tag with your kids? My goodness I don’t have that stamina 😂
I do! Each reward isn’t available every day so if I am not feeling it, I just don’t make it an option. We also do 1:1 story, “walking” their nap stuffy around the school, feeding the actual bunnies in the center, making copies on the copy machiene, and occasionally a Hershey kiss is available to earn.
I've retired out of the field now, but I've seen a lot of different teaching styles. I strongly dislike the treats/sickers/etc ideology in that in reinforces external means of regulation such as, "I shouldn't grab this toy from my friend because teacher will give me a candy" vs "I shouldn't grab this toy out of my friends hands because then she will be sad and I don't want to hurt my friend's feelings." Over time (kids I've taught are now applying for university!!) I've seen more emotional maturity earlier on and an easier time with emotional regulation later in life when the young children learned more intrinsic methods of emotional maturity.
Star charts/ rewards/ prizes etc have been proven not to work long term. Particularly since it’s being handed out right & left and you’re actively trying to make sure all children go home with something…Additionally, if my child came home with candy I’d be not happy.
In regard to behavior reinforcement needs to be frequent and prompt. A three year old has no concept of how his daily behavior results in a prize at the end of the day. Whatever behavior you reinforce will continue to happen. If you actually want the poor behavior to change hype them up when they demonstrate the preferred skill.
In my 3's room, they earned 3 coins (plastic from the dollar store) a day. One for a good morning, one for a good nap, one for a good afternoon. Then on Friday they can spend their coins on the "prize store" and different things cost different amounts of coins. So default behavior gets the full timers about 15 coins a week. If they lose a coin, they always have time and chances to earn an extra unless they lose the very last coin on Friday. My store has basically pinata stuffers, and the only candy I offer is very expensive (10 coins for one saf-t-pop, 5 coins for a tootsie roll or starburst) They cannot see how many coins anyone else has. I know the research on using prizes but honestly it's the one selfish-ish thing I do to bring myself joy. So I tried to mitigate the majority of the potential for harm
Early 3s is too young for this. They cannot be expected to control their impulses all day over a lollipop and they cannot be expected to understand why their classmates are getting a lollipop and they are not. It is cruel. Age 5 is appropriate to start this. Also, you might want to ask the parents if candy rewards are ok - it might be preferred to offer alternative treats or rewards such as stickers or bubble blowers.
I’ve been in this field since 1996 and have never heard of this. Is it a neurodivergent group? I would focus on adjusting the classroom and the schedule to make it a better environment to pull better behavior out of the kids than focus on reward based systems, honestly.
My class was the dolphin classroom. My kids were 3.5-4.5. I made each child a star chart with 10 stars. They earned dolphins to put on their charts for different milestones, positive behaviors, etc. When they filled their chart, they got a treasure box. This gives them small, immediate gratification for each behavior (dolphins) and the bigger rewards for long term positive behaviors (treasure box).
I haven't tried this in a preschool setting (I'm now an ex preschool teacher working with older children) but within a single classroom I've done raffle tickets that go into a draw for a prize (my prizes are always novelty stationery e.g. pencils, erasers etc.) and I've seen it as a whole school rewards system where every teacher can reward a child with tickets and at the end of the week one child from each year group will be drawn out for a prize. Mathematically this means the 'good' kids get more chances but even if you only do the right thing once you still have a chance. Without even having physical prizes for the kids to take home you could reward kids with jobs like the special helper for group time or choose which song we play for quiet time etc. This is why picking one name out of a hat is helpful because everyone gets praise and a chance to win but only one person can actually be the winner if it's a job.
Incentives do improve learning outcomes, but incentives must be maintained throughout every grade level. Research has shown that learning outcomes become worse when incentives are removed -- worse than they were before incentives were introduced.
In my classroom, to start appreciating desired behaviors I introduce sticker books. AKA a piece of paper folded like a book with their name and give out small stickers. I only use them during difficult times such as transitions and always use reminders prior, "this is what you would look like if you are on the carpet and would like to add to your sticker book." I then slowly dismiss the stickers and use my words as their reward and share how helpful they are being doing the right thing. Eventually they forget about stickers and the only time i use them again is when someone goes above and beyond. This is something like sharing without being asked or kindness in some way. I am no expert obviously just wanted to share what's been helpful in my room the last three years.
No prizes, ever. Rookie mistake, they cause more problems that'll it's worth. Only ever reward with experiences.
I would be really upset as a parent if my child was given candy on a daily basis, and even more so to manipulate their behavior. I didn’t do that as a teacher, I wouldn’t want it as a parent.
prizes and toys, cool. food or candy, not okay.
Check out Conscious Discipline by Becky Bailey. It’s expensive to take the course of your center won’t fund it, but they also have some affordable books and free info on the website. It gives evidence based strategies (based on how the human brain works) to encourage desired behavior AND build healthy relationships in your classroom at the same time. It made a world of difference to use in my classroom of 3-5 year old students.
We do “Smelly Circles” in my class, which is literally just flavored lip smackers we rub in a circle on the top of their hand, and I find that it works better than the traditional reward system and is also a great sensory tool for calm down corners!