Sorry to negate, but, have you read the book, "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn? He also talks about praise and charts. They are all, like you say, ways of CONTROLLING the child. At some point children rebel against control. They don't feel you are on their side and they do well only temporarily and not because they care, but because they want the praise/chart mark, sticker etc. They learn to be good puppies on your hoops, not highly moral effective people form within themselves.
So, you can enjoy controlling children with charts, praise and other external motivators and they will do for a while what you want. But eventually they will realize that they are in your net and they want out.
Dr. Kohn follow up with the book Unconditional Parenting where is explains the harm of all types of controlling children. Then, comes Aldort's book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, and gives you the actual tools to have children who really really really behave well: Not because of charts or rewards, but because THEY WANT TO, of their own free will.
