Paul Bright, founder and dadFive Below is rationing squishy dumplings.
As of 24 July 2026, the US retailer says customers may buy no more than three squishy toys per person per day. Its buyers and suppliers are working to keep the dumplings, NeeDohs and related toys in stock. (Five Below)
People are hunting a soft rubber dumpling designed mainly to be squeezed. If that makes no sense to you and complete sense to your child, you have found the problem hiding inside a lot of reward charts: adults decide what is acceptable, but children reveal what is actually rewarding.
To an adult, the dumpling has already failed the parent audit. Useful? No. Educational? No. Likely to survive the toy box? Absolutely not. It will collect fluff, vanish under the sofa and be replaced by an equally baffling object next month.
None of that stops a child wanting it.
The giver does not set the value
Parents have to ask adult questions about a possible reward. Can we afford it? Is it safe? Do I want another sticky object moving into the house and quietly breeding under the sofa? Those questions matter because the parent owns the budget and lives with the consequences.
But they do not tell you whether the child wants the reward.
A book can be a brilliant choice for a child desperate for the next instalment in a series. For another child, it is a parent smuggling reading practice into a gift bag. A family bike ride, choosing dinner or staying up later can be wonderful or completely useless for exactly the same reason.
The squishy dumpling makes the gap obvious because its appeal is almost impossible to defend in adult terms. That is what makes it useful. If your child lights up at the possibility of earning one, you have learned what has value to them right now. You have not agreed to buy it.
The adult controls the menu. The child tells you what on it has value.
That is not handing over a credit card. A parent can rule out anything too expensive, unsafe, unavailable or simply unbearable. Within those limits, the child can help choose what is worth working towards.
Choice and performance are different
There is a small study I think about here. In 2021, researchers gave ten children aged five to eleven short academic tasks under different reward arrangements. Most preferred varied rewards over receiving the same one repeatedly. When six children later compared choosing from the available rewards with having one selected for them, five preferred choosing. (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis)
Then the study refuses to deliver the tidy ending: choosing did not make the children work faster. Across the group, completed academic responses were similar, and a little lower, when choice was available.
That study took place in short, controlled teaching sessions, so it cannot tell us what will happen with a reward chart at home. It does reveal a distinction worth keeping. The children liked having a vote. The work rate did not improve. Choice may make a system feel more respectful or enjoyable without turning it into a stronger behaviour-changing machine.
So do not ask, “What better reward can I invent?” That keeps you in charge of both the limits and the wanting. Ask, “Which of these would you actually like?”
Australian parenting guidance recommends involving children when setting up a reward chart, personalising rewards to their interests and offering a choice when boredom sets in. It also notes that novelty can wear off. (Raising Children Network)
Keep the menu smaller than the toy aisle
Offer three or four options you can genuinely deliver. They might include choosing the Friday movie, ten minutes of one-to-one football, picking dessert, a small toy, or saving towards something larger. You are building a menu, not filling every shelf in a department store. A free choice is not a consolation prize if your child genuinely wants it.
Set the boundaries before presenting the menu. Decide the price ceiling. Keep only one purchased option if that suits your budget. Doing this first saves you from negotiating after one impossible option has already been crowned The Only Reward Worth Having.
Then let the menu change. A child who wants a squishy dumpling this week may care about something else next month. You do not need a central bank, exchange rate and permanent reward economy built around a viral dumpling. Remove it when the enthusiasm disappears without pretending the earlier excitement was foolish.
At Star Rewards, completed tasks earn stars and progress can lead towards rewards selected by the family. The important phrase is “selected by the family”. The app cannot decide what is desirable, affordable or appropriate in your home. A short list on the fridge can do the same job.
A prize should be extra
Retailers and shopping articles often group squishies under labels such as sensory toys, fidgets and stress toys. Sometimes the object is simply cute, tactile and popular. In that case, it can sit on an optional reward menu.
In another family, a similar object may be part of an agreed support plan at home or school. If a child is expected to have access to it, that access should not suddenly become conditional on earning enough stars.
The object’s role matters more than its packaging. A squishy sold as a “sensory toy” is not automatically essential. If you are unsure whether something is part of a support plan, check with the child and the adults or professionals involved before turning it into a prize.
A prize should feel like something extra, not the return of something the child needed all along.
Three dumplings per customer is a strange retail rule. It is also a neat reminder that value is not stored inside an object waiting for an adult to measure it. The parent decides what the family can offer. The child’s response reveals whether any of those options are rewards at all.
