"CAN I have chocolate?" five-year-old Cynthia asks. "I'd like Rocky Road," her nine-year-old brother says.
The kids are at their favourite ice-cream parlour getting ready to enjoy a cone with their mom. They had been shopping and now were enjoying a treat. The treat was a surprise and the kids and their mom are enjoying their special time together.
These kids were a pleasure to shop with and their mother was keen to acknowledge that shopping is not the kids' favourite activity but they had handled themselves well during the process.
If their mom had made the treat conditional on good behaviour, the ice cream would not have been a special surprise treat; it would have been a bribe.
Let's say that before they left home, Mom said, "If you kids behave I will get you an ice cream cone when we're done shopping." This may work, but typically bribery is ineffective in teaching children how to behave properly. In the short term, bribes can be quick and easy to use. However even when they work, the kids are only co-operating for the prize. They're not developing any inner motivation, thinking skills or consideration for the needs of others.
For starters, the kids are behaving for the bribe, not because it's the right thing to do.
These are the kids who are always wanting to know what they will 'get' if they behave. As they get older, the bribe has to get bigger.
An elementary schoolaged child who gets a loonie for every good mark on her report card will become a middle-school child looking for $5 per mark and a secondary school student expecting $10 per mark. Finally, she will expect a major reward when she graduates high school. New car, anyone?
Bribes can also lead to cheating. When a child is only working for the cash award for marks, the mark rather than the learning will be the motivator so cheating simply makes sense. Kids who work for the money associated with good marks learn that it's about getting the marks but not about absorbing the material. So some will do whatever it takes to get the reward.
And some kids just aren't able to make the top marks no matter how hard they work. If they only get recognition for a mark they can't achieve, they will stop trying.
When we use bribes to encourage good behavior our children have no reason to consider their actions when we are not present. If there is no reward for good behavior because the parent is not there, there is no reason to behave.
Many bribes are things that are inherently bad for kids. Often bribes are junk food or candy. In this case kids are getting lousy food all too often. It's one thing to have an occasional treat of a favourite junk food; it's another to make it a common occurrence in order to promote positive behavior.
Sometimes, when we reward kids they end up wondering why they need to be bribed to do what we are asking. For example, their young cousin is coming to visit and you tell your child that if he plays nicely with his cousin you will take him to a movie.
So you're teaching him that being with this cousin is so bad he needs to be bribed to do it. What if he enjoys being with this younger child just because it's fun?
Bribing teaches kids that there should always be a reward for any acceptable behavior, for studying and for helping out. They do not learn that there are expected social standards of behavior and that in the real world society doesn't give prizes for being a civil person. It is just what we do and how we get along.
Bribes end up costing parents time and money and as kids get older they begin to resent being manipulated by rewards.
Kids want to be accepted. They want to do what is right. We can encourage them by appreciating their efforts.
Kathy Lynn is a parenting expert who is a professional speaker and author of Who's In Charge Anyway? and But Nobody Told Me I'd Ever Have to Leave Home. If you want to read more, sign up for her informational newsletter at www.parentingtoday.ca.
