It is a fair worry and the honest answer is yes. The useful part is that the ways it goes wrong are few and they are recognizable early.
The three
It becomes a wage. If a thing only ever happens for a sticker, you have priced it, and a price can be refused. The signal is a child asking what they get before they will do something they used to do anyway.
It becomes a thing to defend. This is what a chart that can go down does. A total that can be reduced is safest when it is not risked, so the child stops attempting the hard thing. The signal is a child who has gone quiet rather than difficult.
It becomes a verdict. A chart that measures whether they were good today is a report card, and a bad day on a report card is a statement about the person. The signal is real distress out of proportion to a missing sticker.
What each one is actually caused by
| Failure | Cause | The change that removes it |
|---|---|---|
| Becomes a wage | The only things on it are things they already did | Put the hard things on it too, and pay them more |
| Becomes a thing to defend | Points come off | Nothing ever comes off, for any reason |
| Becomes a verdict | It names the child, not the act | Every line says what they DID, never what they are |
None of those are subtle to fix, and a chart with all three removed is mostly just a record of effort, which is a hard thing to be hurt by.