Most of us we can hardly imagine working with
children in any capacity and not use some system of rewards, punishment,
incentives or consequences. What I have found in my work with children who are
continually challenging the norm, is that by and large what is common does not
work. Parents are frustrated, told to amp the consequences, children are
labeled oppositional (and they are), rewards seem meaningless and the behavior
gets worse.
The core of a system that relies on rewarding and
punishing behaviors has deep roots behaviorism. What Alfie Kohn argues in
his book, Punishment by Rewards and what I have come to believe as well
through my work with very troubled and hurt kids (who seemed to challenge even
the best of practice), is that it does not generate the outcomes we are really
hoping for. It for sure isn’t giving parents or teachers what they need to stop
the behavior over the long haul. I have
to agree with Kohn on most of what he has written in this book. He says I
believe it too that to take what people want or need and offer it on a
conditional basis to control how they act produces some deeper issues. It does
not for example, promote healthy interactions with people, build relationships
or help one feel trust or safety. Which are the core issues we have to address
with our children who come to us with past trauma.
In truth, we use this system of reward and
punishment in many arenas of life. It is difficult to wrap our mind around how
in the world we would be able to manage children, employees and perhaps
ourselves if we did not consider the promises we give if people do certain
behaviors and especially if they do them well. We believe that deserving people
should be rewarded and that hard work always pays off. Failure happens to those
who did not try hard enough. The thing is, this kind of thinking and ingrained
value system has great appeal for those who are perhaps more naturally well
off. It does little to give solace to
those who have been abused, abandoned or neglected by society or worse by the
those meant to care for them. Our kids from hurt places have a deep sense of
failure and hopelessness about themselves and the world around them.
But why doesn’t it work to reward or punish? The
answer is simple. Rewards do not alter the way a person thinks, their
attitudes, internal beliefs and emotional commitments that drive our behaviors.
If you think that people are merely creatures acting without thought or moral
reasoning you are probably likely to find yourself agreeing with Skinner, that
we are only “repertoires of our behaviors”. But if you believe that true actions
reflect and emerge from who a person is, who they think they are, or from their
feelings, expectations and motivation than it will be easier to understand why
interventions that control actions will not really help a child to grow into a
generous, caring, responsible adult.
The problem I see is that as parents and teachers,
caregivers we aren’t thinking about the long-term (except with great fear) and
our objective is often to gain compliance. Think about it honestly. I hear (and
I have said in regards to my own children), “But she just needs to obey.” If
our goal in parenting or teaching is to get children to obey an order, to show
up on time, to do what they are told, then bribing, and/or threatening may be
very sensible options. But if you are working toward long-term quality of
relationship, helping children to become careful thinkers and self-directed
learners, or to help your kids to develop good values like responsibility and
empathy, then rewards like punishments are ultimately useless and actually if I
am truly honest they are counterproductive.
One of the main problems with rewards and
punishments in my opinion is the damage it does to relationships and how
counterproductive that is to helping us become healthy functioning adults. Brain
research has proven over and over the value, the long-lasting change and
healing that occurs through connection and relationship. Kohn points out that
rewards and punishments flourish in an asymmetrical relationships where one
person has the most power. Furthermore it affects peer to peer relationships,
siblings, as well as teacher-student and parent-child as performance tends to
be weighed and judged and competition increases. In short it makes fostering a
sense of community very difficult as we generally become less likely to help
someone else win an award.
When we talk about kids who have come to us through
adoption, have had trauma and/or may really struggle with attachments and loss
of power and control it begins to make sense why a system designed on who has
the most power tends to be less than ideal. You are constantly fighting against
the fear within the child has of losing power and control as well as damaging
your ability to help them to gain a sense of trust and safety so they can let
go of their fear. And then when you combine this fear of powerlessness and need
for control, and you understand the level of anxiety a child who has
experienced unresolved trauma has and the deep-seated belief they are no good
and going to fail anyway, there are some immediate problems with a
reward-punishment model.
Most kids I work with are not even willing to play
to the game. They rip up sticker charts, refuse to comply and often seem to
value punishment over rewards any day of the week. They will work for a day, a
week or a month to earn a prize but then go back to their old habits before the
reward is even taken out of the box. Other kids are driven by the sticker chart
and will follow a behavior plan to the tee, but as soon as the structure is
gone we find they still do not have regard for others, empathy or a sense of
self or responsibility nor are they any better at making friends or forming
secure attachments.
Someone who is raising children or teaching children
probably at some level wants to create a caring relationship with that child.
Every bit of research I have read about what works in therapy, healing, trauma
and how to help people to heal tells us that connection is the most fundamental
requirement for a child to grow up healthy and develop a good set of values.
Bruce Perry, one my favorites in the field of trauma and brain research and
many others confirms for a child to heal, to grow up healthy and develop a good
sense of values we must first help a child to feel safe and secure.
We especially want our children to be safe enough to
get help when they have problems. As adults we must nurture these relationships.
If we have any hope of a child being able to admit mistakes and accept our
guidance it is going to happen in relationship not in a power struggle.
Building relationship is what Kohn tells us is precisely what rewards and
punishment work against. At best, it puts the one who is telling you to trust them
in a position of judgment over what you do and whether good or bad things will
happen to you…and with our hurt kids they already have had experience with
power and control—experiences that taught them enough to know you don’t want
anybody else to control you, even your basic need for them is in question.
Kohn writes, "Rewards and punishments work when
they are able to induce a behavior because the person wants to impress or curry
favor with the person who hands them out. If the child decides due to
experience people are untrustworthy to begin with or that is more empowering to
gain punishment rather than fall short of rewards; or if they fear being
controlled by someone else then gaining favor with the person also has less
value. For a hurt child, and anyone who has a strong sense of self, working to
impress someone else is not productive or healthy. It isn’t healthy because what
we don’t have is the sort of relationship that is defined by genuine concern
and that invites us to take the risk in being open and vulnerable—the sort of
relationship that inspires people to do their best and can truly make a difference
in their lives." (P.58)
So as we move beyond rewards, punishment and
consequences (the new catch phrase for punishment) we begin to consider what a
reward system ignores--which is the actual reason behind the behavior. Heather
Forbes has great material for schools and parents that ask us to consider what
is driving the behavior…Adler asks what purpose does the behavior serve, Purvis
tells us to find meaning for the child, and to be mindful ourselves of the
child’s trauma history.
A consequence driven parent might say to a child who will not stay
in bed: “If you are not in bed by the count of three, you will not watch tv for
a week.” Or it may sound like: “If you stay in bed until morning for 3 nights I
will buy that toy you wanted.” But parenting from the inside out requires a
person to wonder what is going on and that person would want to find out why the child keeps popping out of bed. There could be any number of reasons and if you are
a counselor like myself, you keep going deeper than the “she just wants
attention” which is seen as a bad thing in our society. But what we might
discover is that maybe she isn’t tired, or maybe she is too tired, making her
more restless. Perhaps she craves the down time with mom and dad at the end of
a long day, maybe she was abused after lights were out where she lived before
but doesn’t have the vocabulary to know what happened and going to bed scares
her. Maybe she is wound up because of something that happened at school, or
perhaps there are monsters under the bed or at the window or maybe she really
is afraid you are going to forget she is there if you don’t see her every ten
minutes or so. The truth is there are endless possibilities.
Someone who is focused on stopping bad behavior is
going to prefer a program that describes what to do and say with day to day
challenges rather than long-term values. Parenting from the inside out is about
promoting healing rather than managing behaviors. Kohn reminds me of Daniel Siegel
when he says that if a child does something wrong one option is to impose a
disciplinary consequence and yet another option is to see the situation as an
opportunity and later as a teachable moment. Parenting it turns out is a lot
more about teaching and problem solving than most of us probably imagined. The
response to bad behavior is not “you did something wrong and here is what I am
going to do to you” but is “something is wrong, what can we do about it?”
I like to think about giving feedback about what the
child is doing, and to think in terms of how a problem is to be solved or how
improvements can be made. It is also helpful to be as specific as possible and
talk about what the child has done rather than in general. “You are a good
writer” is different than “At the end of your story, I liked how you helped the
main character to learn a lesson.” What we are looking for with our children is
not praise or reward but for opportunities to show support and
encouragement…this builds relationships and connections, especially our
children from hard places.
I want to encourage you to spend 15 minutes this
week to pause and think about- to actually list on paper-the long term goals
you have for your children. What do you want them to be able to do? What are
your hopes for them? What do you want them to feel about your home and your
family? What about in the years to come?
The next part is the tough part…it takes longer than
15 minutes. It is to thoroughly go back over what we do with children, our day
to day practices, in light of those long term goals. The really uncomfortable
part of all of this that rewards and punishment are worthless at best and
destructive at worst for helping children to develop true values and skills.
What they do is produce short-term compliance in some children.
And here is the rub. We do want to do whatever
produces compliance. It is more convenient for us for sure. I get it…We just want
the garbage taken out when we tell them, we want bed time to be hassle free, we
the tantrum to stop and the child to stop lying or stealing. Time constraints
are real, our own emotional needs are also real and all of this must count for
something. I know in our society and especially in our schools and
churches…Good kids are the ones who obey. And good parents have good children.
So making them obey is also part of what is required of us-- so it seems. But
is that really what God has called us to? Why do we have this child in our
home? What does it mean to be a healthy functioning adult? Maybe we should go a
little deeper than appearance for our kids.
