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Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes?
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It's a book called Punished By Rewards.
Number 1. How many rewards are you going to give and what for?
Number 2. What happens when kids think they've earned a reward and you don't?
Number 3. What about kids who aren't motivated by whatever reward you are offering?
Number 4. It's not a sustainable model and decreases intrinsic motivation which hurts students long term.
Number 5. It puts other teachers in the awkward spot if they don't also bribe kids.
I can go on.
Token economies are for teachers with poor classroom management who would rather work on behavioral problems than actually teach.
Keep the kids working. Keep the kids focused. Praise thier efforts and not thier results.
Can you give an example of what you mean by misbehave, and what ages you are thinking of?
I think maybe sometimes I would use obviously ludicrous threats, like that I would tie them to the roof of the car, or put them on the roof of the house for the night. It was humorous, they knew it was empty, but it did communicate my annoyance or dissatisfaction with their behaviour.
We would rarely use real threats. Occasionally we would remove a child from a situation, for a while we would send them out of the room and ask them to come back in with a different attitude, or with an apology. If one of them hurt another we might leave the room along with the hurt child. But on the whole they are pretty well behaved.
There are a few books I've enjoyed reading:
Alfie Kohn's books: Punished by Rewards, and Unconditional Parenting.
D.W. Winnicott's book: The Child, The Family, and the Outside World
NAH because you are doing your best as a new mom to a teenager.But the problem I have with your system is twofold. One, as others have mentioned, it is a cheat. It lets you off the hook for conversations where you have to say no.
Two, this system is teaching your children external motivation. For example, your son was rewarded for kindness with a prize of points. I would advise you to read Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards for a new take on that kind of gamified response to his action:
Many teachers and parents would like children to be concerned about other people’s welfare, to be sensitive to someone else’s distress and to take steps to try and relieve it. The evidence, however, shows that anyone who is rewarded for acts of generosity will be less likely to think of himself as a caring or altruistic person; he will attribute his behavior to the reward system instead. “Extrinsic incentives can, by undermining self perceived altruism, decrease intrinsic motivation to help others,“ one group of researchers concluded on the basis of several studies.
https://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816
Joanna Faber and Julie King talk about rewards in general in their book How to talk so little kids will listen and explain that rewards don't really work in the long term. They give a really good example of a wife cooking dinner and then the husband telling her that she needs to get dinner ready earlier and he will give her a reward if she does 5 days in a row and they will have a star chart to track progress. They go on to explain why this doesn't work and can back fire. Joanna's mother Adele Faber in her book How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk recommends a book by Alfie Kohn titled Rewards as Punishment which talks about the science behind this.
Someone at Digital Ocean should read Punished By Rewards.
This outcome wasn't just entirely predictable. It was all but inevitable.
Rewards and punishments don’t work. There is a great book by Alfie Kohn called Punished by Rewards that has some good info.
Here is a link to a bunch of sources about why time outs don’t work.
It needs to be about engaging the underlying need of the child. Time outs are a form of emotional withdrawal which is often what the child is craving or trying to get. So typically this has the opposite effect. We have never used timeouts with our 5yo girls. Instead we talk with them about appropriate behavior and if they need to time to cool off because of their emotions we have an emotion chart to help them discuss things while we have a “time in.” A “time in” is where we sit with them (sometimes after doing some deep breaths together) and help them parse our their emotions. Reminding them that no matter what they DO...we love them for who they ARE, which includes the “big feelings” they sometimes have. But even with the “big feelings” there are behaviors that are unacceptable (hitting, name calling, etc).
Our love is not conditional on their behavior. A time out, while not intended this way, can be interpreted by the child as “you only love me when I behave a certain way.”
Another great book is Unconditional Parenting also by Alfie Kohn. A little light on the practicals but it was foundational for my wife and I in how we wanted to raise our girls.
This sounds like goal based vs. process based, except the goals are based on one day as opposed to long term.
I think about this a lot. In the book Punished by Rewards (https://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816), the author basically argues that if your motivation for doing X is to get Y, then you focus too much on Y and performance would drop doing X. I.e. if you are learning math in school, you'll focus on getting an A rather than actually focusing on the material you're learning.
If you do it time based, it's more like a process rather than focusing on the reward. Which, in a way is better, I think. Although, I think you have to be careful with this model because if you want to take out the trash and walk around in the living room for 2 hours in a circle with the trash bag, the trash still isn't taken out. Someone else could take the trash out in 1 minute if they had a good strategy of going directly outside.
Hell, maybe try making it interest curve based (http://designaday.tumblr.com/post/99397472912/interest-curve), where you read 1 chapter + the beginning of another chapter. At that point, you'll either read the whole additional chapter because you are curious or at least you'll be curious the next day to read the chapter.
Unpopular opinion:
Disclaimer: I don't know your son specifically, and so I can't speak to his situation or disabilities.
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I was an educator for 12 years. The well adjusted kids tend to be the ones who find gratification in intrinsic rewards. The kids who find enjoyment or pride in the things they do regardless of what others think tend to be the most resilient.
Those who crave external rewards like gold stars and a "good job" are the ones who are anxious and depressed. Their concern is what others think, always trying to get validation from others, and thus always WORRY about not getting that validation. About doing something wrong. About displeasing others.
As a teacher, giving students praise for doing what I want them to do is convenient. But it's also manipulative and detrimental to my students. For the students who fell in the latter category, I would use a line of questioning that would lead them to make their own assessment of how well they did or how they felt about what they did. Once they made their assessment themselves, I would respond with either "Then that's great" or "then keep trying" depending on whether their assessment was positive or negative respectively.
It didn't take long for these students to begin showing more confidence. Not just in their academics, but in their interpersonal and extracurricular activities as well.
To close, allow me to leave you with a joke that perfectly illustrates my point:
An elderly man has endured the insults of a crowd of 10-year olds who pass his house on their way home from school since the school year started. One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how stupid, ugly, and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the next day and yelled rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth. True to his word, the old man ambled out and paid everyone. "Do the same tomorrow," he told them, "and you'll get a quarter each for your trouble." The kids thought this was still pretty good and turned out again on Wednesday to taunt him. At the first jeer, he walked over with a roll of quarters and again paid off his hecklers. "From now on," he announced, "I can give you only a penny for doing this." The kids looked at each other in disbelief. "A penny?" they repeated scornfully. "Forget it!" And they never came back again.
For more reading on this topic, I recommend this book. It's not just another opinion piece. It's written by a psychologist who sources various studies to back up his argument.
Jesus Christ... praise is a form of positive reinforcement. A behaviour is reinforced “encouraged” by definition from the praise which is the reward or recognition of performing said behaviour.
https://www.amazon.ca/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816
Keep reading.
This is a very important issue to me. You'll find that the use of extrinsic motivators (rewards and punishments) is rampant in education. Unfortunately, research shows that this is a very flawed system. Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn and Drive by Daniel Pink are two books I think you would find very interesting!
Bottom line: using rewards and punishments is NOT a required part of being a teacher. However, this is a somewhat radical idea, so we can expect resistance when we make such a statement. Feel free to message me anytime if you want to discuss.
You should read this: http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816
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