I got my kids a reward chart and I explained it all to them and wrote up their tasks, we started it this morning.  They made their beds and cleaned up all their toys and were so excited they wanted their stickers for that task so I put the

stickers on and praised them how wonderful they are.  However this afternoon they snuck into my room and pulled all the sheets off my bed and destroyed my room I was so angry, I took away their stickers they had got.  Is this the right thing to do, or should they be able to keep the stickers they got? They are driving me insane!!!

Rewards can work very well if managed properly and are far less damaging than punishment or negative comments. However with rewards to work effectively they must be extremely desirable to the person receiving them. For instance, an adult reward for work is money and that is extremely desirable for most of us in this society. If our money were a reward for an African native living in the wilderness this monetary reward would hold little value. Getting the picture?

Now the importance and attraction of the reward to your children is extremely important. It seem to me from your comment that the whole reward system you are using is YOUR REWARD SYSTEM.  You bought the reward chart, you explained how it's going to work, you chose their tasks and you put the stickers on it, which I guess is one of the rewards. Right? Finally 'you' praised them and told them how wonderful they are'. A positive comment as a reward seeming to be the final reward. Can you see how much involvement the kids had in this 'Reward System'? Not a lot it appears from what you've stated.

Back to adult rewards...money. Now we as adults play a big part in our reward system by choosing our career, studying for improvement and promotion, dictating how much we'll put in to get out, negotiationg salary etc. Equally children need to be involved in the reward system in a more simplistic form right from the start. Now  for rewards for rewards to hold their effectiveness they need to be given at a suitably close time to the behaviour. For an example an adult would not find money and attraction for work if they were told you will be payed at the end of the year. Similarly a child will not find rewards attractive if they are to be given well into the future. The younger the child the closer in time the reward should be given. A toddler should get the reward instantly, whereas a 5 year old may be able to wait 10 minutes or so. As they get older rewards may be given later after the action. For example a 12 year old could wait 1 day or more for their reward. However a good rule of thumb for all children is the sooner after the behaviour the better. The important thing is not to let them down on the reward otherwise it will loose it's effectiveness altogether. For example, when you took the sticker off your child's chart it's telling them that it was all for nothing. The reward system became meaningless and they revolted by doing a shakedown on the perpatrators bedroom. Right?

You could do this by:

1. Establishing appealing rewards - it must be their choice and not yours. I would suggest you sit down with each child separately and brainstorm together all the things they like and like doing in and outside of the home. When making this list do not laugh at any suggestion by the child no matter how ridiculous. Just write them all down. Write down what you think they'd like as a reward too. Think of little rewards eg sticker and big rewards eg. A day out or going to movies etc.  Later, perhaps on another day depending on the age of your children, you will need to evaluate the rewards together. Do this by going through the list one by one and discussing whether it could be an appropriate reward for them to receive and you to give. Leave on the list those you agree to and cross off  those one or two of you disagree with. Now work with your child in getting them to order the list going from the best reward to the worst. Just ask them, "What would you like doing best out of all these things?" Then write '1' next to that one. "What would you like doing next?" And so on. Rewrite/print the list going from the Lesser rewards to the best rewards. Now these rewards should hold value to the child if given appropriately.
2. Establishing the Goals/ Tasks - together you will need to establish the 'task' or 'behaviour' that will get a reward. Use the procedure above for getting these established. That is:  Brainstorm Tasks together, List, Evaluate together, Prioritise in order of easy tasks/ behaviour to hard ones. Rewrite list for each child. Now you will have a reward list that is appropriate and motivational for each child as well as being OK by you. You also have a list of tasks/jobs and behaviour that each child can do to achieve a rewards.
3. Administering the rewards - why did your children get so excited in the morning doing all their chores? I believe it was because they were looking forward for the reward. Did it  eventuate? I believe you tried in giving them a positive comment but positive comments are great but are not going to make children get up and do wonderful things if they are not used to doing things for just positive comments and cuddles, which are very positive rewards in themselves. Kids generally want to please their parent/s but not when it is all one sides to them. That is not when they are doing what appears heaps of things to get a reward that turns out to be a bit of fizzer to them. Thus the reason for establishing inspirational rewards above.  Now the big quesion is, "How do we use the rewards to get them to do what we would like them to do?" The dilemma here is that it can become a logistical nightmare. It needs to be kept simple, easy to operate and monitor, clearly understood by the kids and uncorruptable or manipulated. The idea of using a reward chart is a good one but sticker can be costly to you. I would suggest an A4 grid drawn up for each child. You could use a 'symbol' of some sort every time your child does something eg. an ink stamp, gold star or your initial. I find the initial works well because it's easy and you don't have to waste time putting it on. You could carry a small pad in your purse/pocket to record initials on each child when away from home to put latter on their chart. Now, when is each reward attained. Obviously the best reward, like that trip to Disnyeland, won't be given after they make their bed, so you'll need to decide together what each task/ job or behaviour is worth? I would suggest you have several sets of stickers well hidden for obvious reasons. When you negotiate the task value with your child try to work out how many initials the child needs to get to acquire their first sticker, how many of those 1st stickers will give them another type of sticker and so on.  This may seem a little confusing but it really is quite simple. You might decide for example that the lowest and easiest task on the list is to say thank you or please or taking a used cup to the kitchen etc These tasks might be worth one initial. Whereas making a bed properly might get 5 initials. Or tidying their whole room very well might be worth 3 sticker ie. the same as 15 initials. You will have to do most of the explaining, recording and monitoring of the system to them at this stage. Whatever you decied it must be consistent with each child. You can't have one child get 3 sticker for a room clean up and the other 1 because they are older. That would not be fair.

Once you have established the reward system and it is up and running you must be diligent in maintaining it and honest in your promises. That is if they achieve a certain level of reward you must come through with it or the system may collapse as it loses it's integrity. The other thing is that a 'reward system' can become competitive and this is not the best thing for children. You might notice initially that one child is not interested in the system at all, whereas the other is going for it. That's ok. The one who is not so keen is probably testing the water so to speak. They want to see it up and working before they'll commit. Adults are the same with their monetary reward, we're not going to work unless we're absolutely sure the system will pay us. Right? Some kids are just cautious and wise but once they see that their sibling is getting pay offs they will want to join in too particularly after they see the results do come through. However it is not really possible for a child not to achieve on this system becauses they are going to do something right at some stage and the reward will come.

It is imperative that once you give the reward it cannot be taken away. Back to the adult $. How would you feel after working a fortnight going to check the account and finding out you didn't get your pay because you did something wrong during the fortnight. Not too happy I bet? Kids are the same they won''t appreciate initials crossed out, stickers removed or rewards with-held because they misbehaved. Rewards are seperate from discipline. Rewards to do not replace discipline. Discipline will still need to be maintained. A family without discipline, is a family in chaos. A family with discipline and no rewards is a suppressed family. A balance needs to be struck between the two. The art of fair and just discipline is another issue altogher.

If you reward or discipline system is not working it's time for a change. There are 1 000's of articles on the WWW or in libraries about these.