Rewards and Praise: The
Poisoned Carrot
by Robin Grille
We give our children
ice-cream if they're "good", chocolate if they're quiet,
little gold stars if they eat their greens, maybe even money if they
get good marks at school. We praise them with a "good boy!"
or "good girl!" if they do something that pleases us. For
the modern and discerning parent, the hitting-and-shaming method of
"discipline" is passé. Punishment is out, and rewards are
in. Why use the stick, when we can better teach a child by using a
carrot?
The New Age hype about praising and rewarding children for what we
call "good" behavior has gained massive popularity.
"Find something good your child has done, and praise them for
it!" say the nouveau "how-to" books and seminars.
Psychologists all over recommend the "star-chart" treatment
to modify your child's behavior. This trend is the offspring of a
particular school of psychology - the "behaviorists" - whose
thinking currently dominates much of mainstream psychological and
educational theory.
There is plenty of
evidence that in the long term, reward systems are ineffective.
In fact, these days praising or rewarding your
kids' "good" behavior is so customary that almost nobody -
until recently - has thought to question its validity. Praising or
rewarding kids is just plain common sense, and good parenting -
isn't it?. Who would doubt that it's good to give children praise, or
prizes when they perform to our liking?
The praise-and-reward method is definitely
hunky-dory, since it is backed by a ton of evidence from the most
methodical and ingenious research that money can buy. Actually, it
springs from the work of psychologists who painstakingly discovered
that they could train rats to run mazes, pigeons to peck at colored
buttons, and dogs to salivate at the sound of the dinner bell - by
giving them a controlled schedule of rewards. Psychologists soon
became titillated about the idea of controlling human beings, by
applying to us the same principles that worked on animals. Imagine
their excitement when they realized that rewards work exactly the same
on humans as on rats, pigeons and dogs. Modern psychological know-how
has enabled us to manipulate children's behavior, thoughts and
emotions in the same way as we can teach a seal, with a few sardines
and a little flattery, to balance a ball on its nose.
One problem, though. We
don't particularly care about the quality of relationship we develop
with a lab-rat. We are not concerned with rodents' developing
self-esteem, their sense of autonomy or independence, nor do we give a
hoot whether the rat will get interested in trying bigger and better
mazes of it's own accord, long after we stop rewarding it with little
food pellets. And that, as most of our experts have failed to tell us,
is where the whole fancy technology of "reward, praise and
reinforce" falls to pieces.
Over and over we have been taught that we should praise and reward
our children a lot more. What could be wrong with that? On the
surface, praise looks marvelous - the key to successful
children! Scratch this surface, however, and the results look very
different.
But, rewards improve children's behavior and performance, don't
they?
Or so we thought. However, when the little gold
stars or jelly-beans stop coming, the behavior we were trying to
reinforce tends to peter out. Children that have grown used to
expecting praise, can feel crushed when it doesn't come. This dampens
their perseverance. There is plenty of evidence that in the long term,
reward systems are ineffective.
Contrary to popular myth, there are many studies
showing that when children expect or anticipate rewards, they
perform more poorly. One study found that students' performance
was undermined when offered money for better marks. A number of
American and Israeli studies show that reward systems suppress
students' creativity, and generally impoverish the quality of their
work. Rewards can kill creativity, because they discourage
risk-taking. When children are hooked on getting a reward, they tend
to avoid challenges, to "play it safe". They prefer to do
the minimum required to get that prize.
Here is a good illustration of why we made the
mistake of believing in rewards, based on benefits that appear on
the surface. When an American fast-food company offered food
prizes to children for every book they read, reading rates soared.
This certainly looked encouraging - at first glance. On closer
inspection, however, it was demonstrated that the children were
selecting shorter books, and that their comprehension test-scores
plummeted. They were reading for junk-food, rather than for the
intrinsic enjoyment of reading. Meanwhile, reading outside school (the
unrewarded situation) dropped off. There are many more studies showing
that, while rewards may well increase activity, they smother
enthusiasm and kill passion. Individuals anticipating rewards lose
interest in activities that were otherwise attractive. It seems that
the more we want the reward, the more we come to dislike what we have
to do to get it. The activity required of us stands in the way of our
coveted prize. It would have been smarter to just give the kids more
interesting books, as there is plenty of evidence that intrinsically
enjoyable activity is the best motivator and performance enhancer.
The use of praise or
rewards does not make children feel supported. It makes them feel
evaluated and judged.
Can rewards and
praise harm our relationship with our children?
You wouldn't think that the positive things you
say to your child about himself or herself can be as destructive as
negative labels. But there are times when this is true. Thanks to
modern advances in behavioral science, our ability to seduce or
manipulate children (and animals! and grown-ups!) to do what we want
them to has become increasingly sophisticated. But the cost of
manipulating through rewards has been great. Below are ten ways in
which praise and rewards can damage our relationship with our
children.
Rewards and praise condition children to seek approval; they end
up doing things to impress, instead of doing things for
themselves. This can hold back the development of self-motivation
and makes them dependent on outside opinion. When children get
used to getting goodies for "performing", they become
pleasers, over-reliant on positive strokes. Rewards and praise can
create a kind of addictive behavior: children can get addicted to
recognition, and thus lose touch with the simple joy of doing what
they love. So many of us are addicted to prestige: we get
depressed when admiration fails to come. Instead of doing what we
do for its own sake, we fish for flattery or reassurance, and when
the applause dies away, we sink into despair. Giving rewards or
praise can be habit-forming. This is because the more rewards we
use, the more we have to use them to keep children motivated.
Praise cannot create a personal commitment to "good"
behavior or performance. It only creates a commitment to seeking
praise.
One of the worst things we can do is to praise a child's
potential. Acclamations like "I just know you can do
it", "You're getting better!", "I know you've
got it in you!", "You'll get there!" sound
supportive on the surface. But these compliments are loaded with
our expectation that the child must improve in some way. It tells
the child there is a target to keep reaching for in order to get
the full "bravo!". Praising children's potential does
not help them to like themselves for who they already are, and can
make them feel disappointed with themselves. Underneath the praise
is the silent implication: "you're not good enough yet".
This seduces children to work harder to impress us, at the expense
of their own self-esteem. As psychologist Louise Porter says:
"If you want children to develop a healthy self-esteem, stop
praising them" (see reading list below).
Rewarding children's compliance is the flip-side of punishing
their disobedience. It is seduction in the place of tyranny. Many
studies show that parents who use more rewards also use more
punishment, they are more likely to be autocratic. Praise is the
sweet side of authoritarian parenting. It reduces the relationship
to one of controller and controlled. That is why the more astute -
or less gullible! - children feel something "icky" in
praise; it makes them feel condescended to. Praise is a reminder
that the praiser has power over them. It diminishes the child's
sense of autonomy, and, like a little pat on the head, it keeps
them small.
Meanwhile, the rewarder is like an assessor, judging what merits
praise and what doesn't. This makes them somewhat scary to the
child. The use of praise or rewards does not make children feel
supported. It makes them feel evaluated and judged. Though
"Good boy!" or "Good girl!" is a positive
judgment, it is still a judgment from on high, and ultimately it
alienates the child.
The more insightful children can see right through manipulation.
They are onto us, they think our praise is calculating, and they
are not easily outwitted by seductive tactics. In particular, when
praise is a technique we have learned from a book or a seminar, it
is likely to come across as false and contrived. Praise and
rewards, like flattery, can stink of our efforts to control, and
lose our child's respect.
Children, just like adults, naturally recoil from being
controlled. We all want to grow toward self-determination. Praise
can therefore create resistance, since it impinges on a child's
developing sense of autonomy.
Rewards punish, because the child is denied the reward, praise
or approval unless he or she "comes up with the goods".
Moreover, the child who is used to being praised begins to feel
inadequate if the praise doesn't come. Nothing feels more
defeating to a child than to miss out on a reward that he or she
had been conditioned to expect. Inside every carrot, there is a
stick.
When children are bribed with rewards for "good"
behavior, they soon learn how to manipulate us by acting the part
that is expected of them. They wise up to what it takes to get the
goodies from us: the approval, the ice-cream, whatever. They
become superficially compliant, doing whatever it takes to flatter
or impress us, and honesty suffers. After all, who wants to be
honest or real with a person who is evaluating them? Once relating
is reduced to mutual manipulation rather than authenticity, this
sets the stage for manipulative and dishonest relationships later
in life. Manipulation erodes the functions of mutual trust,
vulnerability and transparency, which are vital to healthy
intimate relationships.
As a result of early manipulation, we grow up trying hard to
please, or we learn to use our wiles to impress, in order to get
the goodies - at the expense of being our natural selves. We
develop a phony or false self that distorts our relationships with
others.
Among siblings, or in the classroom, reward systems create
competition, jealousy, envy, and mistrust. Rewards or prizes for
"good" performance are a threat to co-operation or
collaboration.
Praise can make children feel robbed. If we are hungry for
admiration ourselves, we can sometimes err by deriving it through
our children's triumphs. We use them to make up for our own
wounded self-esteem or pride. If we are praising them because they
have made us feel good about ourselves, they sense this. This
takes away from their good feelings about themselves; our praise
can act as rain on their picnic. Some children refuse to produce
what they are naturally good at, because they are repulsed by
their parents' gloating.
Appreciation is
different from praise because it is not manipulative.
Why are praising and rewarding so popular?
Rewards are an easy way out, easier than trying
to understand why a child is, as many like to glibly call it,
"misbehaving". For example, why bother to find out why a
child refuses to go to sleep at our convenience, (is he afraid? is she
feeling lonely? is he still hungry? etc.) if we can simply reward him
or her with a trinket for going to bed on time? It feels easier to
fudge over the underlying problem by using a bribe. This gives the
child the clear message that we are not interested in how he or she
feels. Worse still, we risk overlooking a serious emotional problem.
Rewards and praise can be a gimmicky quick-fix that ignores the child
as a whole person.
Rewards work well for
getting children to do something that they don't naturally want to do,
for the short-term only. This immediate behavior change rewards us,
and keeps us addicted to rewarding. The negative consequences of
rewards and praise don't materialize until later, so we fail to
recognize rewards and praise as the culprit.
But children do need acknowledgment, and positive feedback. What
can we do instead of praise them?
Often we want to express our delight and appreciation for our
children; who they are as individuals, and the amazing things they do.
Appreciation is different from praise because it is not manipulative.
Manipulative praise, as opposed to spontaneous expressions of
appreciation or acknowledgment, is loaded with the covert expectation
that the child do the praiseworthy act again. Most children can sense
this; they can feel the difference between genuine acknowledgment, and
a deliberate strategy to reinforce their behavior. So, how do we give
our children positive feedback?
Avoiding praise or rewards does not mean holding back the love and
delight we feel for our children, nor our instinctual desire to
encourage them - far from it! It is perfectly possible to join in with
our children and celebrate every step of their unfolding, without
being manipulative. Here's a few suggestions for how to acknowledge
and encourage your children to your heart's content - and theirs -
while avoiding the use of praise.
Focus the child on his/her own
pleasure at achieving.
Instead of lavishing children
with congratulations, it's better if they focus internally on the
pleasure they derive from accomplishment. Children are naturally
thirsty to achieve, learn and conquer. They are born with an
insatiable zest for mastery, and each new attainment fills them with
delight. It is this self-enjoyment which provides the greatest fuel
for perseverance and further learning. When you see your child do
something new, it can be wonderfully encouraging and supportive to
say: "you look like you enjoyed that!", or: how did it
feel to do that?". "I'm glad you did that, you look happy
with yourself!".
Help him/her to self-evaluate.
Whenever possible, it is a good idea to ask
your child about their own self-evaluation. For instance: "how do
you like your drawing?", "are you happy with
how that piece fits into the puzzle?".
Ask them about their inner experiences.
Say, for instance, your child reads you a
story he just composed. After sharing how the story made you feel, you
could ask: "How do you feel about the story you wrote?",
"How did it feel to write it?", "Did you enjoy telling
it?", "How did you come up with those ideas for your
story?". There are few things so nourishing to your child's
self-esteem, and so enriching to your relationship with him, than your
interest in his inner world of feeling and imagination.
Use "I" statements, instead
of labeling the child.
Your appreciation touches your
child more deeply when it is expressed in terms of your feelings. For
instance: "I like the colors you chose!", or "I love
how you sang that song!" - instead of: "what a good drawer
you are!", or "gee you're a good singer". Avoid
labeling statements like: "Good boy for sharing your toys!".
Say instead: "thanks for sharing with your friend, that felt good
to him - and to me". Focus on your feelings, not on a moral or
quality-oriented label. An "I" statement keeps you from
holding a position of power over your child. It creates an honest and
fulfilling connection between you while not interfering with their
experience of themselves.
Comment on the behavior, not on the
person.
Feedback and acknowledgment are
definitely important. Imagine your child has just played you a new
piece she has learned on the piano. Instead of saying: "What a
good player you are!", you could tell her how much you enjoyed
the piece. Better still, be specific. Tell her what in particular you
liked about her playing (e.g. the passion or emotion, the beautiful
melody, how carefully she played, her sense of rhythm, etc.)
How do we know when our positive comments are manipulative?
Ultimately, the problem is not about the perfect choice of words,
or how much or when to make positive comments. When you do the right
thing for the wrong reasons, it ends up being the wrong thing. Since
the problem is one of intent, there is no other way but to become good
examiners of our own motives. This takes practice, and the courage and
humility to look within. When giving a positive comment, are you
trying to seduce the child into pleasing you again, into making Mama
or Papa proud? Or are you genuinely glad to see the child accomplish
something that pleases him, or genuinely delighting in her
being? Therein lies a paradox: that which is not intended to
reinforce, but merely to "connect", is the most reinforcing.
Is praise ever OK?
There is no need to muzzle ourselves, praise is wonderful when it
is not used manipulatively. For instance, rewards should not be
promised in advance, nor guaranteed every time the child does
something you like. Positive feedback is best for your relationship
with your child when it is offered spontaneously, when it springs from
your heart, and not as a deliberate ploy to get more of what you want
from the child.
Conclusion
Praising and rewarding are deeply ingrained
habits, particularly as that's how most of us were raised and
educated. It may take practice to replace them with appreciation and
acknowledgment, but the latter feels more fulfilling, and can bring
you and your child closer.
Children can certainly be made to do what they
don't want or love, by offering them approval, praise or other
rewards. But this does not make them happy. Happiness can only be
derived from doing what is intrinsically rewarding to us, and this
does not require others' applause. Do we want kids to become
reward-addicts, crowd-pleasers, and recognition-seekers, or do we want
them to be self-motivated, faithful to themselves, following their own
interests? If the latter is true, then the way is not to praise them
but to appreciate them. At school, when the work is made intrinsically
interesting, enjoyable, meaningful and relevant, this works better
than reward systems to improve both the quality and the commitment to
the work.
Children are born with an enormous desire to learn. They also have
an innate capacity for honesty, empathy and considerateness. These
qualities come forward as a result of our guidance, our role-modeling,
and our appreciation. Rewards and praise for "good behavior"
or "good performance" simply get in the way.
Excerpted from forthcoming
book Parenting for a Peaceful World, which will be available in our Fundraising
Shop this summer.
Robin Grille is a Sydney-based psychologist. He has a private practice in
individual psychotherapy and relationship counseling, and can be contacted
by telephone at 61-2-9999-0035 and by email at
.
