"There's Nothing Wrong With Bribery" in Parenting - Says Stef

[LovePrevails]

The empirical evidence says otherwise - this is an extremely serious point which should be taken into philosophical enquiry by the show because you are advising hundreds, if not thousands, of parents on the show and if this is a sociologically wrong prescription then it is a critical matter. 

 

Have you ever read the book Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn?

 

You say you bribe your daughter to read with skittles  because she "doesn't know the reward of reading yet"  but

- The data says that this is more likely to make the child see reading as a chore in the long run because it has to be rewarded

- Ie. rewards, like punishment, - according to empirical not anecdotal evidence - are effective at one thing gaining immediate compliance. 

They do not address values underlying behaviour. At best rewards are ineffective at anything beyond getting temporary compliance. But more commonly they are actually counter-productive and undermine what we are actually trying to achieve, which is presumably intrinsic motivation. 

- Apparent benefits of bribing with rewards tend to disappear when the rewards cease to be administered. There can also be an escalation in the need to provide rewards.

- Offering a skittle is also wielding power because your daughter doesn't have the ability to offer you a twix to let her off, she has no access to these bargaining conceptions.

- Rewards ("bribes") are experienced on some level as controlling, manipulating people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise want to do, the alternative is actively enhancing autonomy+self-efficacy instead in order to encourage people to take up good habits.

- data also showed that incentives reduced the effectiveness of other forms of intervention. In other words if you offer goodies, she is less likely to respond to negotiation unless she it offered a bribe.

 

 

- Studies find that children who are rewarded by their parents tend to be less generous people and more selfish, particularly if they are rewarded for being generous.

 

another tangential point

- The best conducted studies on smoking cessation found that not only rewards did not work, but they tended to be worse than doing nothing at all. They had to council the people who got the incentives to quit to undo the damage in order to emphasise self-control and confidence building because they attributed their success to a reward.

- Incentives just got people to lose weight for as long as they were being rewarded. Many of them gained more weight after than they had on in the first place.

 

the data is not little either, it is extensive,

the studies on motivation says that extrinsic motivation tends to pull in the opposite direction from intrinsic motivation

 

There is not much on youtube (I posted what I've found below) but this really is a critical point I think it's a matter of urgency that you read the book and assess it

as someone who says to parents "you have no excuse - the evidence was out there the whole time you were doing it wrong, you just didn't bother to look it up" - this is an opportunity to fact-check your own approach and see if it is congruent with what is best for your daughter.

 

{media]

[/media]

[media]

(edit) just found this one now, 

[media]

(edit) around 40 minutes in Alfie mentions "motivating your kids to read" (as an example he wouldn't want to use bribes for)

 

Quote: "If you want to kill a child's interest in reading, the most effective way to make that kid a non-reader is to give that kid a prize for reading a book... because now they come to see the reading as a tedious prerequisite to getting the goodie. In other words, you have devalued the thing itself  because it comes to be seen as something I've got to do, I've got to get over with in order to get the goodie."

 

"Rewards are control through seduction."

 

"Rewards, just like punishments, are ways of doing things to people - rather than working with people. The best counsellors, the best psychologists, the best trainers, the best consultants in any field have to figure out ways of getting better at working with people. Any kind of incentive takes away with one hand whatever it is giving with the other hand... and that's what the research shows."

[LovePrevails]

 

USA TODAY

May 21, 2009

Cash Incentives Won't Make Us Healthier

By Alfie Kohn

[This is an expanded version of the published article.
Click here for a 1-hour audio presentation by Kohn on this topic.]

 

In its first salvo at reforming health care, Congress is reportedly considering legislation that would do two things:  help employers to set up wellness programs and encourage the use of financial incentives to promote healthier living.

The first idea is terrific.  The second one is terrible.

Programs that reward employees who lose weight or stop smoking are already fairly common. A National Business Group on Health (NBGH) survey found that 30-40 percent of companies now offer such incentives.

Some critics say this amounts to corporate intrusion into employees' private lives.  But there's a more fundamental problem:  Paying people to become healthy simply doesn't work, at least not in the long run. Regardless of whether the goal is to increase quality of life or hold down costs, incentives are mostly ineffective -- and may even be counterproductive.

In 2007, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that “published research does not support the idea that financial incentives are effective at getting people to stop smoking.”  The following year, an academic review of the available data agreed:  “Smokers may quit while they . . . receive rewards for quitting, but do no better than unassisted quitters once the rewards stop.”

Likewise, an NBGH summary of weight-loss research in 2007 concluded that the promise of a reward may induce people to join a program but there is “no lasting effect” in terms of slimming down.

Have newer studies had better luck with incentives, as press reports suggest?  Last December, researchers supposedly found that people lost more weight if paid to do so.  But the small, poorly designed study showed no statistically significant difference at the final weigh-in.  A study of incentives and smoking published earlier this year produced a similar discrepancy between breathless news accounts and unimpressive actual findings.

By contrast, three better-designed experiments – in which various kinds of training and support were provided for quitting smoking – discovered that the effectiveness of these interventions was reduced if a reward was offered for kicking the habit.  In some cases, people promised money actually fared worse than those who weren't in a program at all!

*

If these results seem surprising, it may be because of how we tend to think about motivation – namely, as something that goes up when we're offered a dollar, an A, or a “Good job!”  But psychologists now realize that there are different types of motivation -- and the type matters more than the amount.

“Extrinsic” motivation (to get a reward or avoid a punishment) is much less effective than “intrinsic” (a commitment to doing something for its own sake).  What's more, the two are often inversely related.  Scores of studies confirm that the more we're rewarded for doing something – at work, at school, or at home -- the more we're apt to lose interest in whatever we had to do to get the reward.

Thus, a study in last November's Developmental Psychology showed, as did two previous experiments, that children who are rewarded for helping or sharing subsequently become less helpful.  Similarly, the more that students are led to focus on getting good grades, the less interesting they come to find the learning itself.  They also think less deeply on average than students who aren't graded.

Adjusting the size, type, or scheduling of the incentive doesn't help because the problem is with the outdated theory of motivation on which all rewards are based.  Unfortunately, that psychological theory is still accepted by most economists – including those in the trendy field of behavioral economics – who, in turn, influence public policy.

Sure, bribes and threats can produce temporary compliance.  Offer a reward to adults for going to the gym, or to children for picking up a book, and it may work -- for awhile. But they come to think of themselves as extrinsically motivated, so when the reward is no longer available there's no reason to continue.  Indeed, they may wind up less interested in exercising or reading than they were before.

Rewards have been called “sugar-coated control.”  We like the money -- or the candy or the praise – but we resent being manipulated with it.  Also, rewards are based only on observable behaviors.  They ignore the reasons we may turn to food or cigarettes for solace.

“Smoking, drinking, overeating, or not exercising often represent coping strategies for some kind of underlying distress,” Dr. Jonathan Robison, a health educator, observes.  Incentive programs not only ignore those problems but may produce “a cycle of repeated failure.”

Better answers:  First, address people's motives and deeper concerns rather than just trying to change their behavior. Second, help people to get some control over their lives.  Finally, build on their relationships with others to promote change. Couples and friends tend to lose weight together more effectively than do individuals.

Health can be a tough sell.  But it's clearly something that incentives can't buy.

 

 

 

Breakdown of Research going in to above article:

 

Incentives and Health Promotion:

What Do the Data Really Say?

Alfie Kohn

 

For a comprehensive review of research showing that rewards in general tend to diminish intrinsic interest as well as quality of performance, please see Punished by Rewards.

The two specific issues on which most research in the field of health promotion has been conducted are effects on smoking cessation and weight loss.

 

SMOKING

Research reviews

1. Dyann M. Matson et al., “The Impact of Incentives and Competitions on Participation and Quit Rates in Worksite Smoking Cessation Programs,” American Journal of Health Promotion 7 (1993): 270-80, 295.

*  Reviewed all available research from 1960s through early 1990s

*  Most studies found to be of very poor quality:  of 30, only 8 had “an appropriate comparison group which allowed separation of the effects of incentives and competition from other program elements.”  And only 3 looked at effects after 12 months or more.

*  Of  8 studies with an appropriate comparison group, only 3 even found greater participation in the program as a result of incentives.  And “the research did not show incentives & competition enhancing long-term quit rates past 6 months.”

2.  Pat Redmond et al., Can Incentives for Healthy Behavior Improve Health and Hold Down Medicaid Costs?, Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, June 2007:

“Published research does not support the idea that financial incentives are effective at getting people to stop smoking.  Although financial rewards may prompt people to use self-help materials or even to quit for a short time, no research has shown that financial rewards produce improvement in the number of people who succeed in quitting smoking entirely.”

3. K. Cahill and R. Perera, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2008, issue 3):

*  Looked for all rigorous controlled studies and found 17. 

*  “None of the studies demonstrated significantly higher quit rates for the incentives group than for the control group beyond the six-month assessment.. . . Smokers may quit while they take part in a competition or receive rewards for quitting, but do no better than unassisted quitters once the rewards stop.”

 

Most recent study

Press accounts of a Philadelphia Veterans Administration study (Kevin G. Volpp et al., “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Financial Incentives for Smoking Cessation,” New England Journal of Medicine, February 12, 2009, vol. 360:  699-709) claimed that a positive effect from incentives had finally been found. 

But a careful reading of the study itself reveals:

*  the study didn't evaluate any non-incentive interventions.  Participants either received an incentive for quitting or were in the control group and received no help at all;

*  the “primary endpoint” for judging the effect was at 12 months even though rewards were still being paid at that point.  (What matters is how people fare after the rewards have stopped);

*  at 15 or 18 months, the quit rate for those receiving incentives was greater than for those in the control group but was still extremely low in absolute terms:  below 10 percent;

*  for those in the incentive group who did manage to quit after 9 or 12 months, about one out of three subjects started smoking again once another 6 months had passed.  That relapse rate was actually higher than for those in the control group.

 

Better studies

What about studies that offered various types of intervention to help people quit so that the effect of an incentive could be evaluated in conjunction with these cessation programs?

1.  Dyann Matson Koffman et al., “The Impact of Including Incentives and Competition in a Workplace Smoking Cessation Program on Quit Rates,” American Journal of Health Promotion 13 (1998): 105-11: 

*  A very large study at three worksites that featured a multicomponent program (self-help package + small-group support  + monthly phone counseling) -- with and without incentives.  These incentives “were much larger and were provided over a longer period than in other controlled studies.” Also evaluated:  a contest between groups to see which had the best quit rate.  Effects were evaluated at 12 months.

*  Results:  (a) no significant benefit from the incentive; (b) anecdotally, the contest was particularly counterproductive; and © in discussing what did seem to help, “counselors emphasized self-control and confidence building so that participants did not attribute their cessation to external factors such as incentives” – meaning that an effort had to be made to try to counteract the negative effects of using rewards.

2.  Richard A. Windsor et al., “The Effectiveness of a Worksite Self-Help Smoking Cessation Program:  A Randomized Trial,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 11 (1988): 407-21: 

*  Random assignment to four conditions featuring various combinations of different interventions:  a self-help manual; skill training and “social enhancement”; and an incentive.  Effects were evaluated at 12 months.

*  Result:  the incentive not only didn't help but reduced the effectiveness of other strategies.

 

3.  Susan J. Curry  et al., “Evaluation of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Interventions with a Self-Help Smoking Cessation Program,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 59 (1991): 318-24:

*  4 conditions:  personalized feedback (highlighting intrinsic reasons for quitting based on people's questionnaire responses), an incentive, both, and neither (control group). 

* Results:  incentive recipients were more likely to return the first progress report, but had worse long-term results than those who got the feedback with no incentive – and also did worse than those in the control group.  Incentive recipients had higher relapse rates than those in the feedback orcontrol group and were twice as likely to lie about quitting. 

 

WEIGHT LOSS

Research review

National Business Group on Health's Institute on the Costs and Health Effects of Obesity, “Financial Incentives -- Summary of the Current Evidence Base:  What (and How) Incentives Work,” 2007: 

Despite an obvious pro-incentive bias (the stated purpose of the report being to advise companies on how, not whether, to design incentive plans), the authors conclude with apparent reluctance that rewards at best can increase participation rates in a program and boost short-term compliance, but the evidence finds “no lasting effect” on weight loss (or smoking cessation).

 

Early studies

1.  Richard A. Dienstbier and Gary K. Leak, “Overjustification and Weight Loss:  The Effects of Monetary Reward,” paper presented at annual convention of the American Psychological Association, 1976: 

*  Very small study.  Subjects weighed twice a week.  Only two conditions:  incentive and control group.

*  Incentive recipients made more progress at the beginning, but after incentives stopped, control subjects lost an average of 3.5 lbs, while incentive subjects gained 6.1 lbs. 

2.  F. Matthew Kramer et al., “Maintenance of Successful Weight Loss Over 1 Year,”Behavior Therapy 17 (1986): 295-301: 

At 12-month follow-up:  “The principal hypothesis, that subjects entering into financial contracts for attending skills training sessions or for maintaining posttreatment weight would show better maintenance one year after successful weight loss than subjects receiving no maintenance support, was not confirmed.” 

The only significant difference:  many incentive recipients failed to show up for the final weigh-in.

 

Most recent study

A report from the same Philadelphia V.A. study mentioned above (Kevin G. Volpp et al., “Financial Incentive-Based Approaches for Weight Loss,” Journal of the American Medical Association, December 10, 2008, vol. 300: 2631-37) was, like the smoking cessation study, widely described as having demonstrated the effectiveness of incentives.  However:

*  the study was very small (only 19 people in each condition, almost all of whom were men) and, again, did not evaluate any non-incentive interventions; subjects received only incentives or nothing;

*  only subjects in the reward condition were weighed daily, so any positive effect that might have been found could well be from the motivation of the expected weighing rather than from the reward;

*  news accounts mentioned early results favoring those who received incentives but failed to mention the bottom line:  at the final follow-up, incentives provided no significant benefit.

 

 

[Stefan Molyneux]

Thank you so much for the information, I had no idea, I really appreciate you sharing, I will have a look in detail, we did find that offering skittles for toilet training was very helpful, and now of course she doesn't need skittles to go to the washroom, but I will certainly look at the details and see if I can figure out which way is up, thanks again!

[J-William]

The reading, and bribing debate are really big confusing jumbles.... that are well worth looking into!

 

On reading I like what Stepen Krashen has to say on the subject about "free voluntary reading" (which has got a great name...) but I'm not entirely sure how that research would apply. http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles.php?cat=2

 

basically Krashen's advice boils down to read to your kid, let your kid see you reading, have plenty of interesting books available, and teachers should set aside time to read and read at the same time (presumably a parent could be reading Stephen King, while the kid reads Dr. Seuss or whatever).

[stigskog]

I read Punished By Rewards, and it is convincing, that bribes reduce intrinsic motivation, so anything that you want your child to be self-motivated in, such as learning stuff, then bribing is clearly damaging according to the evidence.

 

Brushing your teeth on the other hand, is just something tedious that needs to be done, so when all the explaining, making it fun and persuasion is exhausted, if a bribe does the job, then that is better than a) not brushing the teeth or b) holding the child down.

[rash]

Thank you so much for the information, I had no idea, I really appreciate you sharing, I will have a look in detail, we did find that offering skittles for toilet training was very helpful, and now of course she doesn't need skittles to go to the washroom, but I will certainly look at the details and see if I can figure out which way is up, thanks again!

Thank you Stefan for taking LovePrevails's constructive criticism constructively and thank you LovePrevails for sharing.

I actually have Alfie Kohn's book. Stef, if you're interested in giving it a read, don't buy it, I can send it to you.

[LovePrevails]

Thank you so much for the information, I had no idea, I really appreciate you sharing, I will have a look in detail, we did find that offering skittles for toilet training was very helpful, and now of course she doesn't need skittles to go to the washroom, but I will certainly look at the details and see if I can figure out which way is up, thanks again!

 

Thank you so much Stefan for the positive response

 

It would be great to hear what your enquiry teaches you

 

I am extremely curious

 

If there are some gaps in my understanding I also really want to be filled in

 

This could lead to a lot of growth for us as a community

 

Love and best wishes

 

Antony

 

 

Edit: Just one more point my girlfriend made about the skittles re: toilet training, when I told her about the thread.

 

She said she thinks its dangerous as it's "eating disorder territory" in her words "when the girl grows up and she has had a hard day at work she will reward herself with sweeties.

 

I think that's a quite observant hypothesis

[LovePrevails]

Brushing your teeth on the other hand, is just something tedious that needs to be done, so when all the explaining, making it fun and persuasion is exhausted, if a bribe does the job, then that is better than a) not brushing the teeth or b) holding the child down.

 

 

Hmmm I'm not sure... I'm thinking we want our kids to grow up to be people who brush their teeth because they have a value that says "I value myself, I value my teeth"

Not a mindset that thinks "here we go again - better get it done quickly as possible" when brushing

 

Naomi Aldort who wrote Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, I believe didn't think it was necessary because the dispute over teeth brushing is more of a tax on the strength of the relationship before they're old enough to understand the value of it for their own selves.

[J-William]

Hmmm I'm not sure... I'm thinking we want our kids to grow up to be people who brush their teeth because they have a value that says "I value myself, I value my teeth"

Not a mindset that thinks "here we go again - better get it done quickly as possible" when brushing

 

Naomi Aldort who wrote Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, I believe didn't think it was necessary because the dispute over teeth brushing is more of a tax on the strength of the relationship before they're old enough to understand the value of it for their own selves.

Is my daughter weird that she likes to do things like take baths and brush her teeth?

 

Or are most kids like that and you only hear stories from people who have problems? (like negative reviews on Amazon "Don't have a kid! they leak too much!")

[LovePrevails]

Is my daughter weird that she likes to do things like take baths and brush her teeth?

 

Or are most kids like that and you only hear stories from people who have problems? (like negative reviews on Amazon "Don't have a kid! they leak too much!")

 

Hmm interesting I have no idea, maybe she likes it because she's never felt coerced into it?

what do you think ? can you ask around?

[stigskog]

Love Prevails - Thanks, that is a good point. Helpful for my children and for me.  Thank you.

[LanceD]

It seems to me like the bribery being engaged in and studied is still coercion. You are bribing your child to do something you intend to make them do, just choosing a non authoritarian way to achieve your goal. However kids are smart and they know when they are being forced to do something, no matter how hard you try to mask it.

 

So it's not surprising this type of soft coercion achieves similarly negative results.

[ccuthbert]

LovePrevails, GOOD FOR YOU. This bribery thing is way out of hand and I am appalled that Stefan would recommend it. UGH. It's a good sign that he is taking what you posted into consideration.

 

Stigskog, parents can instill good hygeine habits in their children not only by modeling them but by doing them together as a normal routine. In our house, we lived our lives together rather than in parallel the way it seems that most families do. We woke up together, ate, read and played together, and went to bed together. The children followed our lead and didn't question things like bathing, brushing teeth or bedtime. They viewed them as an unremarkable and necessary part of the daily routine, almost like breathing.

 

Of course, when they get older f'getaboutit. They eat junk food and stay up all night watching garbage on TV and I wonder how THAT ever happened, as I drink my veggie juice and read books--you know those archaic things made of paper with funny writing on them... ;-) But they do brush their teeth, I have to say.

 

 

ps I can't get over this. Throwing candy at a kid to get her to use a toilet? This is so disgusting, treating her like an animal to be trained. He might as well be throwing a fish to a seal.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

ps I can't get over this. Throwing candy at a kid to get her to use a toilet? This is so disgusting, treating her like an animal to be trained. He might as well be throwing a fish to a seal.

He didn't throw candy at her. It's not disgusting and it's not treating her like an animal. It's nothing like throwing fish at a seal. 

[MysterionMuffles]

you da man, man! excellent post.

 

It's kind of hard to distinguish between negotiating and bribery so I'll be careful to spot the difference.

[Prairie]

To me it seems like adding sugar to a food to make it palatable, rather than letting the child develop their own appreciation for the inherent rewards of unsweetened food. These artificial rewards can block discovery of the natural rewards.

[LovePrevails]

good analogy Prairie, the child may not want to eat the food without sugar in the end

[Stefan Molyneux]

Still reviewing, the studies Kohn cites are all behind paywalls, just keeping y'all up to date...

[LovePrevails]

oh right that's a shame , I look forwards to hearing your conclusions

[Mike Larson]

I'm also very interested in this topic, and I look forward to Stefan's review of the literature.

 

Here's just a few thoughts/questions I've had about this topic...

 

I've often heard the use of bribes/rewards justified on the basis that they are voluntary transactions... no different than any other exchange that occurs in the free market. But even if that were true, it does not necessarily follow that all voluntary transactions are equally effective in achieving a desired outcome.

 

If there are important differences between paying an employee for labor and giving your child a sticker for practicing an instrument, what are they and why are they important?

 

Is there a difference between rewarding a child for mowing the lawn vs rewarding him for brushing his teeth?

 

The argument has been made that rewarding a child to perform a task ultimately decreases the child's internal motivation to perform that task. But for things like memorizing some basic math facts, does it matter that the child will not be motivated to memorize these math facts in the future? Once they are in his head, chances are they will be there to stay, no?

 

It seems like there are a lot of things we do that require getting over a certain "hump" or past a certain point before they become enjoyable (like playing an instrument). I wonder if rewards could be useful in getting children past that point, so that their internal motivation can then carry them forward, without the need for future rewards.

 

In the past, I have sometimes used a small reward as an incentive to get my children to try something or go somewhere new (that I think they will really enjoy). More often than not, they end up really enjoying the new experience and no longer need the reward to do it again. Now is the net affect of my using rewards in this manner going to be positive or negative? Will they always expect rewards in order to try something new (I know the anwser to that is "no", since most of the time I can still persuade them without rewards)? Am I not seeing some huge negative effect that will show up later in their lives?

 

I have read the book "Punished by Rewards" and found it to be rather convincing. But while I think the use of rewards should be limited as much as possible, I'm still ambivilent about whether or not they should be avoided completely.

[Ashton]

Still reviewing, the studies Kohn cites are all behind paywalls, just keeping y'all up to date...

I might be able to help in this regards, if there is any specific studies you are after, i can check my wifes university access and liberate them for you.

[Mike Larson]

I took some notes when I read the book... here is one quote that I recorded that is interesting and relevant to this discussion:

 

"Incentives will have a detrimental effect on performance when two conditions are met: first, when the task is interesting enough for subjects that the offer of incentives is a superfluous source of motivation; second, when the solution to the task is open-ended enough that the steps leading to a solution are not immediately obvious."

 

This seems to suggest that when the task is uninteresting (at least in the beginning) and when the task is fairly straight forward, external incentives are not detrimental to the performance. Although this really says nothing about the outcome of the child's character... just the performance.

[Daniel Unplugged]

I love the way Stefan has responded to this, it reminds me of some wise words.

 

"Until my student proves me wrong, I know not, if I was a good teacher."

[Clark Gorny]

I am very interested in this topic. I can see the dangers in using bribery as a replacement for communication or to avoid conflicts of interest. However I do think its also unfair to think of children as robots who must be programmed, the important thing to nurture is the ability to reason. A child with reason should be able to understand that sometimes in life you do things you aren't really interested in doing to gain something that you do want. Such as going to the dentist, brushing your hair or wiping your bottom Teeth that stay in your mouth that is good hair that isn't all matted up that is good and not having crusty poop on your butt that's nice too. I do think there is the potential of going to far with bribery but like allot of things moderation is key.

 

 Like I said before I am very interested in this topic and in no way an expert. I use an occasional bribe myself and would like to see what the community ends up thinking about this.

 

-Clark

[cynicist]

I always viewed rewards as a temporary substitute for the times where your child is not yet able to understand the why. Eventually as they get older you can explain the reasoning and they can do it based on that instead.

 

 

Edit: I just watched a two hour talk given by Alfie Kohn in 2005 called "Unconditional Parenting" (which you can actually find on Pirate Bay lol) and it was absolutely fantastic. A lot of it was on empathy and UPB, but he gave some pretty good arguments against rewards. Basically he makes the claim that it is a form of behavior modification (like punishment) which is negative because it teaches the child to be self-interested and doesn't involve understanding on the part of the parents, and is disrespectful to both the child and the parent. (due to the skinnerian carrot/stick nature of it)

 

His argument is that they are suboptimal compared to reason and explanation. He also explicitly states that punishment/reward is effective in short term compliance/behavior modification, just not preferable in the long run if you want a healthy, loving relationship with your children. I don't disagree at all with that. He also changed my view on rewards as a substitute when he explained trying to uncover more about why a child is refusing to do something. It seems obvious now but even if your kid can't understand something you can try to figure out their resistance and work around it.

 

I won't have kids for a while if ever but this is all interesting to consider in the meantime.

[LovePrevails]

I just put up this obscure interview on Punished by Rewards :

[AustinJames]

Anyone interested in this thread may also benefit from a similar discussion here:

 

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/37985-pay-for-grades/#entry365281

[LovePrevails]

http://youtu.be/-THHTczXBRA?t=10m37s

[LovePrevails]

Here is Gabor Mate (who Stefan interviewed) lecturing on the same subject:

[luminescent]

basically Krashen's advice boils down to read to your kid, let your kid see you reading, have plenty of interesting books available, and teachers should set aside time to read and read at the same time (presumably a parent could be reading Stephen King, while the kid reads Dr. Seuss or whatever).

 

child:  What are you doing?dad:  Reading.child:  What are you ree-ding?dad:  It's a secret.child:  (thinking)  Why is it a secret?dad:  (turns page so she can see it)  Can you read it?child:  No.dad:  That's why it's a secret.

 

 

[J. D. Stembal]

Negotiations such as "If you want dessert, you have to finish your dinner," are potentially damaging because most desserts are addictive. Raise your hand if you've seen a six year old beg for candy (Skittles, in my example) while prostrating before you on the ground promising you the best behavior in the world if only you will give them one piece.

 

Tossing them a quarter every time they take out the trash or clean their room works because the nature of the exchange is not psychologically damaging, as is the case with sugar-based substances. Eventually, the child will value their time more than they value the quarter (damn the Federal Reserve Bank!), and will have moved onto bigger and better chores.

 

You may find, as I have, that modern parents are eschewing the pay for chores paradigm because they believe that it promotes callous capitalism, i.e. the child will only care about money at the expense of other values such as compassion for others who are less privileged. I am not contending that Kohn is putting forth this argument, but it's out there in the water, so to speak. Incidentally, the aforementioned parents have the kind of irresponsible and unmotivated children that will intentionally make a mess just to give you more work to do because it validates their existence.

[shirgall]

I struggle with this one too. I prefer to have "natural consequences" to good and bad behavior and not rewards and punishments, esp. since it seems inevitable that rewards and punishments are unevenly applied. But some "natural consequences" take a *very* long time to manifest. Empathy and explanation haven't gone far enough with my own interactions with my teenagers, but I get the occasionally spark of "you know, you were right a year ago when you said 'x'."

[NGardner]

When i was in my undergrad I did an experiment with mice. We took different mice groups and assigned different categories. One group was constant rewards for lever pushing. Another was randomized rewards for lever pushing. + a control. After baseline pushing was achieved in the groups we introduced rewards on the every time and random schedules. We found that the constant reward group pushed more than the random. More interestingly the constant reward mice had a huge drop off in the rate of lever pushing when rewards were taken away after only a short time (20 sec), while the random group did not experience a drop off in rate until much later (5min), eventually it went down but remained higher than its baseline rate. Not saying children are mice but just food for thought. 

[jpahmad]

You do whatever works as longs as you tell them the truth (children) and don't violate the NAP.  It's that simple.