Today’s free printable is a dental health chart. With two dentists for siblings (and another taking his DAT in a month), you’d think good dental hygiene would be second nature to our little ones. That’s not necessarily so. They still need lots and lots of reminders to brush and floss regularly.
When we had to make appointments with their sister to have a couple of cavities filled recently, I knew we’d need to work double-time on building better dental health habits. That’s how my newest habit tracking chart came into existence:
Do your kids need help remembering to brush and floss? Print out our dental health chart and use it until doing so becomes second nature to them.
And, in case you’re trying to establish other good habits — like sleeping through the night or ditching diapers for big kid pants — here’s some other charts we’ve used in the past to help with such goals (thankfully, with greater success than we’ve yet managed with daily flossing):
More Good Habits that will Serve Kids Well:
Staying in Bed all Night
My bedtime chart might not have been necessary if I didn’t let my babies sleep in my bed from the day we brought them home from the hospital, but it’s just so much easier to nurse multiple times a night (and still wake up feeling rested) when I have them right next to me!
Once they wean (at about two years), a month or so of charting — and rewarding! — their successes at sleeping alone is usually all it takes to transfer them to their own bed.
Toilet Training
Whenever I’m in the throes of potty training, I post a very simple sticker chart in the bathroom (where it’s handy) or on the refrigerator (where it serves as a reminder to keep trying) and reward my toddler with a colorful sticker for each attempt at pottying (for successful attempts, I give double stickers!)
I eventually made a girls’ version and a boys’ version of this very basic chart. You can scroll to the bottom of this post to download either or both.
Keeping Bedrooms Clean
This bedroom checklist revolutionized the way my kids responded when I’d tell them to tidy up their rooms!
It also helped me to focus on the positive progress they were making at keeping their rooms clean (instead of zeroing in on that one dirty sock I see still stuffed under the bed).
Reading for Pleasure
My kids have participated in summer reading programs as long as they can remember. When we lived in areas that didn’t offer much in the way of library rewards programs, I designed a family program and offered incentives for any extra reading my kids did beyond their normal schooling.
I revamped our reading logs a few years back to make them a little prettier. You can download it here and tailor the rewards to suit your own family.
Doing Household Chores
My age-appropriate chores for children has long been one of the most popular (and unexpectedly controversial) charts on this website. You can use it as a guideline for assigning family chores, or use it as a checklist and mark off each skill as your child masters it.
Scaling Back on Computer Time
One of the most disturbing trends we’ve witnessed in 30 years of parenting is the way digital devices have taken over more and more of children’s free time. Many kids don’t read books or ride bikes or climb trees or play outdoors at all anymore. Instead, they sit inside with their eyes glued to a screen.
Computers are wonderful tools, but we shouldn’t let them take over our life or our children’s lives. To encourage your kids to broaden their experience, have them complete this daily checklist before granting them any more screen time.
Need help in developing another good habit not listed above? Try one of my general habit tracking printables, which you can download here. Used consistently, these will help you become more disciplined in a variety of areas. Adapt them to suit your own goals.
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