56 www.timeoutbeijing.

com June 2013

Kids &
Education
Edited by
Stella Antakusuma
kids@timeoutcn.com
Education
& Kids
Rewarding your children for good behaviour is a good idea, right?
Wrong, says Ale Kohn, author of Unconditional Parenting and
Punished by Rewards. Words Stella Antakusuma
P
arents often dangle rewards
in front of their children to
encourage or manipulate them
into doing as they are told. But, says
Ale Kohn (pictured, right), author
of several parenting and education-
related books: When we choose to
use the rewards system or, for that
matter, punishments as way of
getting children to comply with our
wishes, we nd ourselves joining all
those people around us who prize
docility in children and value short-
term obedience above all. Giving
a child a gold star whenever they do
something right is, it seems, rather
like training a rodent to press a lever
to dispense a snack. So unless you
want your child to be a lab rat, here
are ve reasons to avoid rewards at
all costs.
Short-term motivation
Rewards do work, but they are
a myopic solution that can have
long-term repercussions. It is also
by no means the best way to get
children to comply; if they desire the
reward badly enough, they will do
as they are told without considering
the reasons. Kohn encourages
parents to help children learn the
real reason for completing a task.
Engage them in conversation about
what makes a family (or classroom)
function smoothly, or how other
people are affected by what we do,
or failed to do. Not only is it more
respectful, it is also more likely
to help kids become thoughtful
people. This process may take
longer than simply offering rewards,
but it allows children to develop
high-order moral thinking, as well as
a sense of consideration for others
around them.
Increasing stakes
It is not unusual to hear adults
say, If you sit quietly, Ill give you
a sweet. At this point, the child may
start behaving because the sucking
of a sweet meets their temporary
need to alleviate boredom.
However, says Kohn, the child
may soon learn the association
of sweets to bad behaviour. To
stretch our imaginations further, it
is plausible that any adaptable child
may extend the concept of earning
sweets with other rewards. Parents
often nd themselves offering
higher stakes each time, especially
when they face a deadlock in
negotiations. A sweet today can
morph into an iPad tomorrow.
A desired behaviour from children
can be, and should be, achieved
free of charge. It starts with love,
logic and reasoning and time.
Keeping count of
rewards is not as easy
as ABC
Reward implementation
usually begins at
toilet training. If
a parent has to
award a star each
time the child
uses the toilet
properly, what
happens if the
child does only
half their business
in the right place?
To complicate things
further, an older sister
who is already potty-trained
may now also want a gold star for
every successful job that she does,
and argues that a halfway job does
not warrant a real star. What started
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Not so rewarding
out as a seemingly sensible way
of keeping track of good behaviour
can become an auditing nightmare.
Abolish all gold stars within your
home and life will be much simpler.
Losing interest in
the task
If someone paid you 10RMB to
take out the rubbish every day, this
menial but important task would
seem even less attractive if the
monetary gain is stopped. Kohn,
who has done extensive research
on this phenomenon, says: Studies
have shown that the more we reward
people for doing something, the
more they tend to lose interest
in whatever they had to do to get
the reward. Once the reward is
removed, children lose the external
motivation that had been propelling
them all along. Rewards can hence
undermine a childs learning
process because the motivation
becomes one of getting the reward
and not one of learning. Help the
child cultivate self-motivation
by discussing how the learning
benets them. Take the opportunity
to impart important values such as
perseverance and relentlessness.
Creating reliant children
Before a child can build condence,
they rst need to feel secure in the
environment that they are in. As
Kohn points out: One of the biggest
problems of the rewards system is
how children equate rewards, or the
holding back of them, to love. Going
by that, it only means that a parents
love is conditional upon good
behaviour. If they constantly feel
the need to look to the parent for
approval sometimes in the form of
verbal rewards such as praises the
child may never develop a sense
of independence and condence
to progress in whatever it is they
are doing.
When a child manages to do
something for the rst time, the
child should say, I did it!, instead
of asking the parent uncertainly,
Was that good? This is not to say
that parents are to withhold their
verbal adorations for their children.
But focus on the art, not the artist.
This helps children understand
what they have done well, and
continue to improve in the
areas that they lack
in. When it comes to
celebrating a major
achievement,
involve the child
and position
it as a family
celebration,
rather than that of
a parent bestowing
the reward.
Unconditional
Parenting is available
now on amazon.cn in both
English for 73.80RMB and Chinese
for 17.90RMB. Punished by
Rewards is available on amazon.cn
in English for 83RMB.
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