Rewards or Bribes?

Last week I spoke of setting clear expectaions for our children, and touched a little on rewards and consequences. Recently, I have been attending a parenting class at my church, and I found Pastor Justin Harley’s explanation of rewards and consequences to be very enlightening.

Many times throughout the bible God uses rewards and consequences for his children.
Deuteronomy 30:15-18 says “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil…”(Reward and consequneces) “…In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.” (Clear expectation, and rewards) “…But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, [and that] ye shall not prolong [your] days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.” (Consequences of disobedience) In the ten commandments, he tells his children to “honor your father and mother, that your days may be long on the earth.” This is the first promise, or reward, God gives.

There is of course the fear of bribing your children to behave. Let’s look at that for a moment. Webster’s dictionary defines Rewards as: a stimulus administered to an organism following a correct or desired response that increases the probability of occurrence of the response; and a bribe as: money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.

Now, if I reward my daughter for good behavior, chances are she is going to want to behave again. This is a teaching tool. It does not mean they are always rewarded. (At one time Emily did feel entitled to a treat for good behavior, or a task fulfilled. This became a problem, because she began to exhibit bad behavior for not getting rewarded. So we went for a period of time not giving her anything, breaking that mentality.) Good behavior is required no matter what, and rewards are used to encourage it. They are not used as a bargaining tool for mom or child.

Of course, the key is consistency in both consequences and rewards. If you tell your child they are going to be rewarded for a particular behavior or action, you had best not forget about it. And, if you tell your child there will be a consequence, you had best follow through. Why? Because every time you don’t follow through they will begin to believe you are lying. With consequences they will think they can misbehave, finding that line not to cross. With rewards they will not be encouraged to do the task because they do not believe they will get the reward.

Remembering that not receiving a reward can be consequence enough, I want to remind you not to promise something you want to do for them, or something you won’t want to take away from them. One thing I will not use is mine and Emily’s Starbucks trips. Emily and I go to Starbucks and we have “coffee” (she has vanilla milk, no I do not pump my 5 year old with caffeine). This is our time where Anna, Daddy, aunt Jo Jo, no one, is there except she and I (I even leave the cell in the car). We can talk and she feels so grown up, and special. And she has my undivided attention. This is not something I am going to take from her, because this is relationship building. I want her to open up and communicate with me. Why would I take that from her, and me!? So this is not a reward that I use, because otherwise it would also have to be something she could lose.

I know that rewards can be a slippery slope into bribery, but I am confident that you are a smart mom who will remember BALANCE!