New to the 7-Day Challenge?
Start from the beginning: one free game a day for a week, no prep and no equipment beyond a ball.
Start the 7-Day ChallengeWhat Rewards Work for the 7-Day Challenge?
Play Plans & Challenges
A reward can help this challenge along, but only if it rewards the right thing.
Below is what the actual research on rewards and children's motivation says once you look past the headline "rewards are bad" take. There's a straight table of reward ideas rated on whether they reward showing up or performing (both free and bought, with real 2026 UK prices), and a ready-to-use script for the reward moment itself. This is scoped to a short, low-pressure seven-day family habit, not a long-term behaviour-chart system.
Not whether to reward, but what for
Rewards Are Fine. It's What You're Rewarding That Matters
"Should we use rewards at all" is the wrong question for a seven-day family challenge. The real question, per the research below, is whether the reward is for showing up or for performing well. Those are two different things to reward, and the research treats them very differently.
A sticker for playing today and a sticker for scoring the most goals today look identical taped to a fridge, but they teach a child two different lessons about why the game is worth doing. This page is built around that single distinction. Everything below, the table, the script, the research, comes back to it.
Free and bought, rated the same way
Reward Ideas, Side by Side
Four reward ideas came up while working out what suits a seven-day family challenge, and here they are on one table: what each one rewards, the free or DIY version, a real UK bought price if you'd rather not improvise, and an honest verdict.
| Idea | What It Rewards | Free/DIY Option | Bought Option (UK price, 2026) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily streak mark (a tick, a magnet moved along, a star drawn in a box) | Showing up, every day played | A hand-drawn grid on paper or the back of an envelope | A shop reward chart, around £1.25; a reusable magnetic chart, roughly £9-£25 | The safest kind of reward there is: it celebrates the streak, not the score. |
| A sticker per day played | Showing up | A hand-drawn star or a tick in coloured pen | A sheet of stickers, around £1 | Exactly as good as a hand-drawn star if the goal is marking the day, not judging it. Buy stickers only because they're fun to peel, not because they work better. |
| "Man of the match"-style praise for the best goal or trick | Performance | Free either way | Free either way | The one to be careful with. Per the research below, praise tied to how well someone did risks turning next time into a test rather than a game. |
| A small end-of-week treat once all seven days are marked | Completing the streak, not any single day's performance | Choosing tomorrow night's game, an extra bedtime story, a trip to the park | A small treat jar with a few sweets or a token, roughly £3-£17 for the jar itself | A nice full stop for the week. Keep it small and tied to finishing the streak, not to who played "best". |
A daily streak mark is the safest option on this table because it can only ever be for showing up. A hand-drawn grid on paper does that job for free, and a shop-bought reward chart runs around £1.25 if you'd rather have one printed, or a reusable magnetic chart from Amazon UK spans roughly £9-£25 for a version that lasts beyond this one week.
A sticker works the same way, and a sheet of stickers costs around £1. Buy them for the fun of peeling one off, not because they outperform a star drawn in pen, because for this purpose they don't.
The "man of the match" row costs nothing either way, and that's exactly the point: this is the reward to watch, not the one to shop for. Save any real prize for the finish line, not for any single day's performance. A small treat jar for the end of the week spans roughly £3-£17 depending on size, or costs nothing if the treat is a choice rather than an object.
A note on the prices themselves: these are UK bands checked in early August 2026, not live guarantees. Retailers change prices and stock often, so treat every figure above as a fair sense of cost, not today's exact penny.
If you're also weighing up what to buy for the challenge itself rather than the reward side of it, the equipment list for the 7-Day Challenge covers that separately and reaches a similarly relaxed verdict.
The praise that protects the fun
What to Say Instead of "Well Done, You Scored!"
The words around the reward matter as much as the reward itself. Praising the score turns the score into the point. Praising the showing up keeps the showing up as the point, which is what a seven-day habit actually needs.
Let your child do the actual marking, the sticker, the tick, the star, instead of doing it for them. The physical act of marking the day is a small ritual worth handing over, and it's a better use of the moment than any line about how well they played.
Two real studies, read honestly
What the Research Actually Says About Rewards and Kids
A genuinely well-known study by Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973) found that children who already enjoyed an activity and were then promised a reward for doing it later showed markedly less interest in it once the reward stopped. Those children logged roughly half the free-play time of children who were never promised anything at all.
A much larger meta-analysis of 128 studies by Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) found the same pattern, with an important nuance. Rewards tied to how well a task was done were the ones most consistently shown to undermine later motivation, while rewards not tied to performance carried a smaller, less consistent effect.
Both studies come from structured-task, mostly classroom or laboratory settings, skew toward primary-school-and-up children in general, not specifically ages 5-9, and neither is about football or parent-child play. This is a reasonable, honestly-labelled steer from the best available research on reward types, not proof of what will happen in one family's garden.
See how Our Kickabout researches its pages.
So what should you do?
The Honest Verdict
Mark every day played, and keep the reward for showing up, not for scoring. Save any actual prize for finishing the whole streak rather than for any single day's performance.
Nothing here needs buying. A hand-drawn chart and a proud "well played" cover it completely, and stickers or a shop-bought chart are a fun extra, not a requirement. That's the same honest, non-pushy verdict this cluster reaches on equipment: most of what makes the week work is already in the house.
Quick answers
Common Questions About Rewarding the Challenge
Do sticker charts work for kids?
Yes, for marking a streak, they work well. The research suggests they work best when the sticker rewards showing up, not how well the child played.
Should I reward my child for scoring goals?
It's the one to be careful with. Research on rewards and motivation suggests performance-based praise can make the activity feel more like a test next time. Praising effort and showing up protects the fun better.
What's a good prize for finishing a 7-day football challenge?
Something small tied to finishing the whole week, not any single day's performance: a small treat, a choice of the next game, or just genuine praise for the streak itself.
Keep going
Where to Go From Here
This page is about keeping the challenge fun, not about keeping score. Here's where to go next.
Wondering what you need to buy?
The honest kit list for the challenge itself, separate from the reward side covered here.
Read the equipment listWant the full week planned out?
See how each evening's session runs.
See the full 7-day plan, laid out day by dayTonight's five minutes
Mark tonight on the chart before you do anything else.
A tick, a sticker, a star drawn in pen, any of it works. The streak is the reward. Start Day 1 and mark it the moment you're done.