Beware Of Prizes 
While parenting without punishment may be a given for many people, the other extreme – praise and rewards – can be just as damaging.
We live in a culture that seems to focus around praise and rewards and I see a lot of parents using what amounts to bribery to manipulate their children into behaving in a certain way. Using rewards is essentially the same kind of manipulation as using punishments – or the threat of punishments – to coerce a child to do what you want.
I often hear parents bribing children with promises of treats in return for good behaviour. This can be overt or subtle. Things like grades in school are also a form of bribe, and the result is that children respond as they are expected to: they will act in the way that is expected of them in order to get the proffered carrot.
The problem with this is it all backfires when the child learns the lesson well enough to expect a reward for everything they do, and they feel worthless if they don’t win the prize.
I’ve seen many children who refuse to do anything unless there is a reward involved, and for the most part, what happens is the child isn’t doing something for its own sake, but for the reward.
Studies show that children who do not receive grades or other rewards for their school work learn far better because they are learning from an intrinsic sense of motivation – to learn because the subject is interesting and the knowledge becomes its own reward.
These days it isn’t uncommon to hear choruses of parents exclaiming “well done!” and “good job!” to their children as they play at the playground. Children are praised effusively for sliding down the slide or bouncing on a see-saw. Sometimes this over-praising can even get to the extremes of constantly saying “good boy” or “good girl” for every step the child takes.
Equating Love With Rewards
When children are constantly manipulated into a certain set of behaviour, they don’t learn to behave as a respected member of the community, but as a praise-junkie who would do whatever gets them the reward, be it a gold star, a prize or a verbal, “good job”. Children quickly equate this with love, and they learn that in order to receive love from their parents, they must behave according to the parent’s wishes.
I did the same early on in Sequoia’s childhood, thinking it was the normal thing to do and it would get her to behave in the way I wanted her to. Having grown up myself in a family that used praise, bribes and punishments as manipulation, I feared punishments or getting into trouble, and I craved praise, so it seemed natural that my child would also desire praise. The reality is that I have always felt that I’m not good enough, and when praise is forthcoming, I don’t really believe it.
It didn’t take long for Sequoia to begin looking to me for praise after every little thing she did. It was then that I realised all the praise was damaging to her self esteem – rather than feeling any sense of self-achievement, pride or enjoyment in what she had done, it was clear she was beginning to care only about my opinion and response to her actions.
Once I stopped showering her with effusive praise for every little thing, she regained her sense of self-motivation and the ability to easily identify how she feels about things rather than seeking approval from someone else.
It may appear to be easier in the short term to manipulate children using punishments and rewards, but at some point the child becomes desensitized to parental manipulation, and needs the threat of worse punishments and better rewards to keep her in line.
As they grow up, children look less to their parents for approval and more to their peers; they lose the ability to judge for themselves whether something is right or not, because they have been trained to always look to others.
This leads to people who feel generally dissatisfied with life, constantly seeking more and more praise, and never feeling like they are able to achieve true worth in anyone’s eyes.
I want my child to follow her path in life, knowing intrinsically what is right and wrong; not looking to others to judge her or tell her what to think or how to feel.
I’m not saying that children’s successes should be ignored, quite the opposite: I regularly express joy in my child’s achievements, but only when it is genuine; not as a way to manipulate or bribe her.
I do try to avoid blindly saying “good job” to Sequoia when she does something – it’s too easy to get into the habit of pronouncing everything “good” without really looking at it. Then “good” loses its meaning. Instead, I make an effort to pay attention to what Sequoia is doing and comment on it honestly.
Responding To A Child’s Success
Sequoia recently learned how to hula hoop with impressive skill – within a few weeks she is managing to spin three hoops at once while walking down a balance beam! It would be very easy for me to just gush enthusiastically and say “oh good job, that’s great, well done!” but I choose to focus on exactly what she has achieved, “I’m really impressed with the way you manage to get on the balance beam while hooping, I can see that you really enjoy practicing.”
When Sequoia draws a picture, I’d rather talk with her about it; to discuss what she was feeling when she drew it and the colours and style she has used. After all, if she hadn’t managed to get her picture how she wanted to and was feeling that it wasn’t so good it would be hollow for me to blindly praise it.
By relating with my child about what she is doing, it helps her to identify how she is feeling and to see for herself what she is achieving. That way, she can develop her own sense of discernment, and not need to seek for praise externally.
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