Bribing: It Doesn’t Work

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This week’s Works For me Wednesday is an unusual themed one. We’re sharing what doesn’t work for us. I’ll admit I was stumped to think of something worth sharing. most of what doesn’t work is pretty obvious and not worth sharing, other things that I could really write about would stir up hurt feelings and people getting angry. Trust me, it’s happened plenty times before when I say a choice is an absolute no-go for me, there’s always some group stomping in getting angry about how I’m some how insulting their choice by not doing the same.

So instead I wanted to share something that works, but doesn’t. Something that I’m guilty of doing, but trying not to. The thing: bribing kids.

Several moms in some of the parenting forums I used to hang out in were totally against bribes, rewards, treats, and the such. it always sparked me as odd, and coming from the queen of weird that’s a mouthful. So I was told to read Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes by Alfie Kohn. And it clicked, I understood what was going on. Kohn says we’ve become so programed to expect a reward that we’ve begun to require it. It starts with stickers, then candy, then money, then a car. As it all adds up real motivation disappears until you have a person who won’t do anything without some kind of little something for it. But it does more than strip the internal motivation from kids, it also strips parents of the ability to parent their children rather than manipulate them. From the book:

Attend to your experience and you will notice not only that rewards work (in this very circumscribed sense), but also that they are marvelously easy to use. In the middle of a lecture on behaviorism a few years ago in Idaho, one teacher in the audience blurted out, ‘But stickers are so easy!’ This is absolutely true. If she finds herself irritated that children in her class are talking, it takes courage and thought to consider whether it is really reasonable to expect them to sit quietly for so long - or to ask herself whether the problem might be her own discomfort with the noise. It takes effort and patience to explain respectfully to six-year olds the reason for her request. It takes talent and time to help them develop the skill of self-control and the commitment to behave responsibly. But it takes no courage, no thought, no effort, no patience, no talent, and no time to announce, ‘Keep quiet and here’s what you’ll get…’

But the problem goes beyond just short cutting past teaching straight to “do this, get that” manipulation. Creating an environment where all things are either rewarded or punished helps perpetuation the blame the victim mentality so often seen. The examples of this are everywhere. A woman gets raped and before anyone casts an eye on her attacker they are already condemning her for wearing the wrong thing, being in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, etc… The system of rewards and punishments is so deeply engraved that many people cannot see that an innocent person could be punished and a bad person could be rewarded. Again, Kohn says:

It is an integral part of the American myth that anyone who sets his mind to it can succeed, that diligence eventually pays off. It seems to follow, then, that people who do not succeed can be held responsible for their failure. Failure, after all, is prima facie evidence of not having tried hard enough. This doctrine has special appeal for those who are doing well, first because it allows them to think their blessings are deserved, and second because it spares them from having to feel too guilty about (or take any responsibility for) those who have much less.

The belief that rewards will be distributed fairly, even if it takes until the next lifetime to settle accounts, is one component of what is sometimes referred to as the ‘just world’ view. Social psychologists have found that those who hold this position are indeed likely to assume that apparently innocent victims must have done something to deserve their fate; to face the fact that suffering is visited upon innocent people is, of course, to recognize that the world is not particularly just at all. It does not take much imagination to see where this sort of thinking can lead: one group of children, after watching a film about Nazis, were reported to have said, ‘But the Jews must have been guilty or they wouldn’t have been punished like that.’

Bribes, rewards, and manipulations are so common, or normal that they are almost invisible. I grew up with them, as did most other people. We use them as a pretty effective short term goal getter almost daily. “Sit quietly and you can have a candy bar.” “Wait five minutes and you can watch another cartoon” “Answer these questions the way i want and you get a shiny A+.”

But the long term effects are not so positive, and certainly not effective. So it’s something I’m trying to force myself not to do. Yes it’s tough, it’s damn tough. Try explaining to a four year old why he needs to just come one right now when you know promising a treat if he hurries will work a lot faster. the problem is in the end he learns to hurry up for the treat and not because it’s rude to keep people waiting when we promised to be there.

[tags]parenting, children, Alfie Kohn, rewards, punishment[/tags]