To Bribe Or Not To Bribe Your Child
Many parents would never dream of bribing their children to clean their room or eat their vegetables, but many experts say it can be effective, as long as you call it a reward.
Others say rewards actually de-motivate children. Alix Kennedy, the editor of Wondertime magazine, says rewards can be effective, as long as you are aware of how they are presented.
"Kids learn how to work the system for rewards so you need to be smart if you go into it. There's a wonderful guy named Mark Lepper at Stanford, the leading expert on motivation in young children," Kennedy told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "He tells this great cautionary tale that he knew a woman who developed this elaborate reward system for her son so he would behave at the dinner table. She takes him out to a fancy restaurant with the relatives and her son holds out a piece of stemware over the floor and says, 'How many piece points will you give me if I don't drop this?' So they learn the system."
Kennedy says there are three things you should consider before presenting rewards:
Kennedy says that if your child is showing curiosity about the chore even without an award, you probably don't need to offer an award because they won't feel as good about completing the task on their own.
If your child is really not enjoying the task at all, you might want to offer a reward. For example, if your child has a lot of difficulty reading but struggles through it, a reward might be appropriate.
Some people may feel that shots and vaccinations are a fact of life and a child must learn to deal with them. But others might want to make the experience end on a positive note, so after the shots, the parents could take the child out for ice cream to show they understood that getting the shot was a hard for the child.
Parents should also feel like they can reward their children even if the reward isn't expected. For example, if the child cleans their room without being asked, the parent could get a poster or a new decoration for the room to celebrate the good behavior. This isn't setting up behavior, which could be considered a bribe, but providing positive motivation to clean the room again.
"The difficult thing is you can start with the proverbial star chart, the thing that everybody begins with, potty training you say, 'Let's do motivation,' and that's fine. But it is a slippery slope," she said. "It leads to the next thing you're offering is candy, maybe after that you're offering money. We're all afraid of becoming that parent, and we know of them, who offer a car to the high school student who makes honor roll. We're trying to avoid that path."
Take children to the park can be just as enjoyable as giving them $10 to spend on video games. Most importantly, children want more of their parents' time.
For more information visit Wondertime.com and MelissaAndDoug.com.