The problem with rewards

I’ve been thinking so much about rewards lately, how prolific they are in our society generally, and specifically how we use them to manage and control behaviour in young children. My son started reception this year and I have been quite alarmed at the volume and frequency of the stickers they are awarded, often for reasons he has forgotten or not understood to begin with. After learning that children who finish all of their lunch are rewarded with stickers, we spoke with him about the importance of listening to your own body and that stopping when he was full was more important to us as a family - we said that if he wanted stickers, we would happily give him stickers, but not conditional on eating his lunch! He seems to have taken this in his stride but I’m careful to keep communication open on this as I’m sure there will be days when he wishes to be part of the ‘good children’ who have finished their food. This sense of unease has lingered with me and I’ve spent the past few weeks re-reading books I’d dived into when he was a toddler.

I am no stranger to behaviourist theory, as most psychology training programmes are heavily influenced by this line of thinking and management, especially modules which focus on the treatment of children and adolescents. I didn’t query this much during my training, it was presented to us as one of many theories and approaches to psychological thinking and practice. It was only once I had my son that I really began to notice the insidious presence of this thinking in our everyday lives. I remember reading a book on sleep when he was a few months old and having a deep sense of unease as I read, that most of what was outlined and suggested focussed on sleep from the perspective of the parent. The baby’s experience was in fact almost entirely absent and their behaviours we seen as behaviours to be managed rather than communications. The more I read, the more this pattern became apparent and the more my discomfort grew around the way we seemed to view babies, that suggestions and recommendations were standardised and uniform when of course babies are not!

By chance I stumbled across one of Sarah Ockwell-Smith’s books (Toddler Calm - A guide for Calmer Toddlers and Happier Parents), and I’ll never forget the relief I felt reading it. I wasn’t just an anxious parent indulging my then toddler by not wanting to enforce a rigid routine on him, by allowing him to make certain choices and by being open to his communications. This was also the first time I read about the problems with rewards and praise - I mean I knew punishing a child threatened their feeling of safety and their relationship with caregivers, but I’d never considered the converse, that praise and rewards are as ineffective and serve to undermine the very behaviours we are trying to promote. (You can read a succinct summary of this in Toddler Calm, Chapter 5, Carrots and sticks and the problem with praise).

I then began reading Janet Lansbury who speaks about the concept of sportscasting (or broadcasting, terms coined by Magda Gerber) as an alternative to praise or admonishment, and our impulse to rescue or distract from the experience of emotions. Sportscasting is essentially a judgement-free and emotionally neutral commentary on a child’s behaviour as we see it, giving words to their experiences and helping them to integrate these (the building blocks for developing the ability to mentalize). For instance, watching a child doing a puzzle we might comment ‘you are struggling to get that piece to fit’ rather than ‘that’s the wrong piece’. Another instance might be a struggle with two toddlers over a toy, we might say ‘you both really want to play with the truck!’ rather than deciding who should have the toy and interfering with an opportunity for social negotiation. In addition to freeing us from an impulse to rescue our children from discomfort, it demonstrates that we are with them, that we see what they are experiencing while allowing them space and time and work through something and find solutions. This teaches them that we are able to tolerate their big feelings, that we are not overwhelmed by them and this in builds the capacity for them identifying and being able to sit with their internal experiences. In a climate where we seem to have to work hard at recognising and tolerating our emotional experiences, probably a legacy of our ‘stop crying, you’re ok’ upbringings, this is a small but essential part of our parenting that we need to look at. This approach felt an odd and slightly forced way to communicate at first, but it has become easier and more natural as it’s become more of a habit. (Important to note here is that sportscasting is only appropriate when all parties are safe.)

I then moved on to Alfie Kohn (I first read his book ‘Unconditional Parenting - Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason’, and later ‘Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes’). These books really dig into the research behind the problematic nature of rewards and their place in our society, especially traditional education systems. Kohn demonstrates that rewards (extrinsic motivation) directly reduce intrinsic motivation and while they may initially elicit behaviour change, this is at best short-lived. He also explains how offering rewards for creative tasks imposes a rigidity around what is expected or hoped for as a creative endeavour, again directly reducing creativity as well as pleasure experienced doing these tasks. Most worrying for me is the implication that rewards and ‘recognition’ set up competition between children, impeding their ability to see each other as allies, work in collaboration with each other, and reducing empathy for each other. It seems a wildly confused set of messages when we use phrases like independent thinking, working together, while actively promoting competition and blind compliance. It we want our children to grown up to be an ally for others, the environment and themselves, then again we really need to interrogate how we are treating and speaking with them.

Some of this has felt quite confronting to me in the past, but watching the effects of these practices first hand has brought this to the fore for me again. I’m not unrealistic about the pressures schools and teachers are under to deliver various targets in under resourced settings, but it does seem that we need to look at this more honestly. How can we release children from the meaningless goal of being a ‘good child’ and free them up to explore, connect and learn? If our children are in school there are still ways to make these changes at home, in the way we speak to them, in the way we see them, and in the way we make space for their autonomy - often the hardest part is examining how things are, what our own struggles and experiences have been so we can clear a path for more connected parenting.