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| Are stars and a pay-off really the best way to train up a child? |
It starts with a sticker for peeing in the potty. (And don’t even get my started on that
iPad potty!) And then a star chart
for making the bed. A coin in the
jar for washing the dishes. A
lollipop for completing homework.
It seems we reward our kids for every step of their day. And by “we” I mean parents generically,
not me specifically, because I’m not a very good rewarder.
I recently read a parent suggestion in a popular family magazine
about giving her kids a stamp every time they spoke to an adult and after
acquiring so many stamps, they got to go to a restaurant as their reward. Really? We’re rewarding our kids for talking to people? I thought this, like using the potty, was something that we taught our children as a regular course
of growing up. How many of us weren't pushed towards an aunt or family friend and told to say "hello"? What about taking the kid to the librarian's desk and telling the kid,"ask her where you can find books on dinosaurs." When I mentioned
this to my daughter, she screwed up her face and said, “What if the kid doesn’t
feel like talking to an adult?”
Which brings me to the related question – are we teaching our kids, by
giving them rewards for everything, not to do the thing, but to do whatever’s
necessary to get a reward, be it a sticker or a dinner out? Rather, shouldn’t we teach our kids to
do the thing for the internal feel good feeling of doing it? Or, wow, maybe just for the life practicalness of learning to do a new task.
I just saw another blogpost by a dad-blogger who gave his
daughter $200 – wait, let me back up – wrote a contract with his daughter,
giving her $200 for disabling her FaceBook account for 6 months. What the? And no, I’m not giving you a link because I’m not going to
give you any tools to replicate such foolishness. I wonder if dad ever thought of taking away her
phone/computer/iPad? What happens
at the end of 6 months? Does she
get another $200 or does she get her account back? And, if she’s a smart girl, why doesn’t she ask for more the
next time around? Maybe another
$200 for her Twitter account and another $200 for Instagram. This kid could retire by the end of
high school.
What happened to “because I said so” and “because I’m the
mother/father”? Or even Cliff
Huxtable’s “I brought you into this world, I’ll take you out” if you need to
put a little more tooth into it? I
wish I would give my kids a reward or a pay-off for doing what I told them to
do.
Last year, our Superintendent of Schools lead a book talk
about motivating students. Part of
the discussion revolved around cultivating a sense of internal motivation – the
sense of “oh, I’m so proud of myself for doing that” instead of “what will I
get if I do this?” Because when
the reward is gone, the behavior disappears, too. Or the desire for a bigger reward appears.
Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t think kids deserve a
congratulatory reward every now and then. I prefer them for the big stuff
and natural rewards/consequences.
Straight A’s on the report card?
Great, let’s go get some ice cream. All the chores are done without too much shouting and
crying? Now, we can settle in for
a movie and popcorn. Is this
better than the reward every step method?
I guess it’ll be years until we find out if my band of four turns into fully functioning
adults, but in the meantime, I’m saving a lot of money on stickers and
contracts.
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